tihvaxy  of  t:he  CKeclo^ical  ^tminavy 


PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

Rev.  C.  R.  Strong 


BV  4501  .D76  1891 
Drummond,  Henry,  1851-1897 
Pax  vobiscum 


PAX  VOBISCUM, 


AND 


THE  GREATEST  THING 
IN  THE  WORLD. 


BY 

HENRY  DRUMMOND,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.E.,  F.G.S., 

AUTHOR  OF  "NATURAL  LAW  IN  THE  SPIRITUAL  WORLD,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK: 

THE   POLLARD   PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

13  Barclay  Steeet. 

189L 


Copyright,  1891, 

BT 

POLLARD  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 


Fax  Vobiscum, 


INTRODUCTION. 


Few  authors  have  gained  world -famed  celebrity  so 
quickly  as  did  Professor  Henry  Drummond.  From  the 
pastorate  of  an  obscure  mission  station  in  the  island  of 
Malta,  he  soared  gradually  in  moral  intellectuality  until, 
having  returned  to  Glasgow  and  won  the  titles  of  Fellow 
of  the  Royal  Society  of  Engineers  and  Fellow  of  the 
Geographical  Society,  he  appeared  in  North  field,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  1887,  at  the  invitation  of  Mr.  Mcody,  and 
shone  as  a  beacon  in  religious  literature. 

Born  at  Stirling— the  historic  Stirling  of  the  Scottish 

royalty— he  was  educated  at  the  Edinburgh  University. 

Having  joined  the  ministry,  his  first  evangelical  labors 

were  in  far-off  Malta.      But,   soon,  his   great  Christian 

soul  ached  for  wider  fields,  and,  returning  to  Scotland, 

he  was  appointed  lecturer  at  the  Free  Church  College  in 

Glasgow,  and  took  charge  of  a  workingmen's  mission  in 

that  city.      Here  his  philosophical  teachings   and  deep 

thought  attracted  attention ;  and  in  a  little  while  Henry 

Drummond  had  sprung  into  the  first  rank  of  moralists 

and  social  philosophers. 

It  was  at  North  field,  Massachusetts,  that  he  delivered 

3 


4  Introduction, 

the  famous  lecture,  "  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World." 
Here,  also,  did  he  earn  fame  by  other  wonderful  utter- 
ances. 

Divines  from  every  state  in  the  union  were  present; 
men  whose  eloquence  had  stirred  communities  almost  to 
frenzy-point.  But  Drummond  talked,  not  with  peculiar 
eloquence,  but  with  a  sense  of  decision  in  religious 
thought  which  was  accepted  in  positive  awe  by  those 
who  had  erstwhile  posed  as  mentors  in  the  science  of 
religion.  His  arguments  were  positive.  His  writings 
expose  his  thoughts. 

His  work,  "  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,"  has 
had  a  sale  in  England  and  America  of  nearly  one 
million  copies.  As  an  African  traveller  he  has  added 
a  charming  gem  to  travel-literature  in  "Tropical 
Africa."  And,  later,  his  brochure,  "Pax  Vobiscum," 
sparkles  with  fervid  religious  truths  and  literary  ex- 
cellence. 

Recently  he  has  travelled  with  Professor  Geike  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains ;  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  ere 
long  the  reading  public  will  be  favored  with  a  work  from 
his  pen  descriptive  of  that  grand  panorama  of  nature. 


PAX  VOBISCUM. 


"Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me; 
for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart:  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto 
your  souls.     For  my  yoke  is  easy,  and  my  burden  is  light." 

6 


PAX   VOBISCUM. 


I  HEARD  this  morning  a  sermon  by  a  distinguished 
preacher  upon  "  Rest."  It  was  full  of  beautiful  thoughts; 
but  when  I  came  to  ask  myself,  "  How  does  he  say  I  can 
get  Rest  ?"  there  was  no  answer.  The  sermon  was  sin- 
cerely meant  to  be  practical,  yet  it  contained  no  experi- 
ence that  seemed  to  me  to  be  tangible,  nor  any  advice 
that  I  could  grasp— any  advice,  that  is  to  say,  which 
could  help  me  to  find  the  thing  itself  as  I  went  about 
the  world  this  afternoon. 

Yet  this  omission  of  what  is,  after  all,  the  only  impor- 
tant problem,  was  not  the  fault  of  the  preacher.  The 
whole  popular  religion  is  in  the  twilight  here.  And 
when  pressed  for  reiilly  working  specifics  for  the  ex- 
periences with  which  it  deals,  it  falters,  and  seems  to 
lose  itself  in  mist. 

The  want  of  connection  between  the  great  words  of 
religion  and  every-day  life  has  bewildered  and  discour- 
aged all  of  us.  Christianity  possesses  the  noblest  words 
in  the  language;  its  literature  overflows  with  tei-ms  ex- 


8  Pax  Vobiscum. 

pressive  of  the  greatest  and  happiest  moods  which  can 
fill  the  soul  of  man.  Eest,  Joy,  Peace,  Faith,  Love, 
Light— these  words  occur  with  such  persistency  in 
hymns  and  prayers  that  an  observer  might  think  they 
formed  the  staple  of  Christian  experience.  But  on  com- 
ing to  close  quarters  with  the  actual  life  of  most  of  us, 
how  surely  would  he  be  disenchanted !  I  do  not  think 
we  ourselves  are  aware  how  much  our  religious  life  is 
made  up  of  phrases;  how  much  of  what  we  call  Chris- 
tian Experience  is  only  a  dialect  of  the  Churches,  a  mere 
religious  phraseology  with  almost  nothing  behind  it  in 
what  we  really  feel  and  know. 

To  some  of  us,  indeed,  the  Christian  experiences  seem 
further  away  than  when  we  took  the  first  steps  in  the 
Christian  life.  That  life  has  not  opened  out  as  we  had 
hoped  ;  we  do  not  regret  our  religion,  but  we  are  dis- 
appointed with  it.  There  are  times,  perhaps,  when 
wandering  notes  from  a  diviner  music  stray  into  our 
spirits;  but  these  experiences  come  at  few  and  fitful 
moments.  We  have  no  sense  of  possession  in  them. 
When  they  visit  us,  it  is  a  surprise.  When  they  leave 
us,  it  is  without  explanation.  When  we  wish  their  re- 
turn, we  do  not  know  how  to  secure  it. 

All  which  means  a  religion  without  solid  base,  and  a 
poor  and  flickering  life.  It  means  a  great  bankruptcy  in 
those  experiences  which  give  Christianity  its  personal 
solace  and  make  it  attractive  to  the  world,  and  a  great 
uncertainty  as  to  any  remedy.  It  is  as  if  we  knew 
everything  about  health— except  the  way  to  get  it. 

I  am  quite  sure  that  the  difiiculty  does  not  lie  in  the 
fact  that  men  are  not  in  earnest.    This  is  simply  not  the 


Pax  Vobiscum.  9 

fact.  All  around  us  Christians  are  wearing  themselves 
out  in  trying  to  be  better.  The  amount  of  spiritual 
longing  in  the  world— in  the  hearts  of  unnumbered  thou- 
sands of  men  and  women  in  whom  we  should  never  sus- 
pect it;  among  the  wise  and  thoughtful;  among  the 
young  and  gay,  who  seldom  assuage  and  never  betray 
their  thirst— this  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  and 
touching  facts  of  life.  It  is  not  more  heat  that  is  needed, 
but  more  light ;  not  more  force,  but  a  wiser  direction  to 
be  given  to  very  real  energies  already  there. 

The  usual  advice  when  one  asks  for  counsel  on  these 
questions  is,  *'Pray."  But  this  advice  is  far  from  ade- 
quate. I  shall  qualify  the  statement  presently ;  but  let 
me  urge  it  here,  with  what  you  will  perhaps  call  daring 
emphasis,  that  to  pray  for  these  things  is  not  the  way  to 
get  them.  No  one  will  get  them  without  praying;  but 
that  men  do  not  get  them  by  praying  is  the  simple  fact. 
We  have  all  prayed,  and  sincerely  praj^ed,  for  such  ex- 
periences as  I  have  named ;  prayed,  believing  that  that 
was  the  way  to  get  them.  And  yet  have  we  got  them  ? 
The  test  is  experience.  I  dare  not  limit  prayer;  still  less 
the  grace  of  God.  If  you  have  got  them  in  this  way,  it 
is  well.  I  am  speaking  to  those,  be  they  few  or  many, 
who  have  not  got  them;  to  ordinary  men  in  ordinary 
circumstances.  But  if  we  have  not  got  them,  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  prayer  is  useless.  The  correct  con- 
clusion is  only  that  it  is  useless,  or  inadequate  rather, 
for  this  particular  purpose.  To  make  prayer  the  sole  re- 
sort, the  universal  panacea  for  every  spiritual  ill,  is  as 
radical  a  mistake  as  to  prescribe  only  one  medicine  for 
every  bodily  trouble.    The  physician  who  does  the  last 


10  Pax  Vobiscum 

is  a  quack;  the  spiritual  adviser  who  does  the  first  is 
grossly  ignorant  of  his  profession. 

To  do  nothing  but  pray  is  a  wrong  done  to  prayer  itself, 
and  can  only  end  in  disaster.  It  is  as  if  one  tried  to  live 
only  with  the  lungs,  as  if  one  assimilated  only  air  and 
neglected  solid  food.  The  lungs  are  a  first  essential,  the 
air  is  a  first  essential ;  but  the  body  has  many  members, 
given  for  different  purposes,  secreting  different  things, 
and  each  has  a  method  of  nutrition  as  special  to  itself  as 
its  own  activity.  While  prayer,  then,  is  the  character- 
istic sublimity  of  the  Christian  life,  it  is  by  no  means  the 
only  one.  And  those  who  make  it  the  sole  alternative, 
and  apply  it  to  purposes  for  which  it  was  never  meant, 
are  really  doing  the  greatest  harm  to  prayer  itself.  To 
couple  the  word  "  inadequate  ''  with  this  mighty  word  is 
not  to  dethrone  prayer,  but  to  exalt  it.  What  dethrones 
prayer  is  unanswered  prayer.  When  men  pray  for 
things  which  do  not  come  that  way— pray  with  sincere 
belief  that  prayer,  unaided  and  alone,  'svill  compass  what 
they  ask — then,  not  getting  what  they  ask,  they  often 
give  up  prayer.  This  is  the  natural  history  of  much 
atheism,  not  only  an  atheism  of  atheists,  but  a  more 
terrible  atheism  of  Christians,  an  unconscious  atheism, 
whose  roots  have  struck  far  into  many  souls  whose  last 
breath  would  be  spent  in  denying  it.  So,  I  repeat,  it  is  a 
mistaken  Christianity  which  allows  men  to  cherish  a 
blind  belief  in  the  omnipotence  of  prayer.  Prayer,  cer- 
tainly, when  the  appropriate  conditions  are  fulfilled,  is 
omnipotent,  but  not  blind  prayer.  Blind  prayer  is  a 
superstition.  Prayer,  in  its  true  sense,  contains  the  sane 
recognition  that  while  man  prays  in  faith,  God  acts  by 


Pax  VobiscuiJi.  1 1 

law.  What  that  means  in  the  immediate  connection  we 
shall  see  presently. 

What,  then,  is  the  remedy  ?  It  is  impossible  to  doubt 
that  there  is  o  remedy,  and  it  is  equally  impossible  to  be- 
lieve that  it  is  a  secret.  The  idea  that  some  few  men,  by 
happy  chance  or  happier  temperament,  have  been  given 
the  secret— as  if  there  were  some  sort  of  knack  or  trick 
of  it — is  wholly  incredible  and  wrong.  Rehgion  must  be 
for  all ;  and  the  way  into  its  loftiest  heights  mast  be  by 
a  gateway  through  which  the  peoples  of  the  world  may 
pass. 

I  shall  have  to  lead  up  to  this  gateway  by  a  very  fa- 
miliar path.  But  as  this  path  is  strangely  unfrequented 
where  it  passes  into  the  religious  sphere,  I  mast  ask  your 
forbearance  for  dwelling  for  a  moment  upon  the  com- 
monest of  commonplaces. 

EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES. 

Nothing  that  happens  in  the  world  happens  by  chance. 
God  is  a  God  of  order.  Everything  is  arranged  upon 
definite  principles,  and  never  at  random.  The  world, 
even  the  religious  world,  is  governed  by  law.  Charac- 
ter is  governed  by  law.  Happiness  is  governed  by  law. 
The  Christian  experiences  are  governed  by  law.  Men, 
forgetting  this,  expect  Rest,  Joy,  Peacp,  Faith  to  drop 
into  their  souls  Prom  the  air  hke  snow  or  rain.  But  in 
point  of  fact  they  do  not  do  so;  and  if  they  did  they 
would  no  less  have  their  origin  in  previous  activities  and 
be  controlled  by  natural  laws.  Rain  and  snow  do  drop 
from  the  air,  but  not  without  a  long  previous  history. 


12  Pax  Vobisciun. 

They  are  the  mature  effects  of  former  causes.  Equally 
so  are  Eest  and  Peace  and  Joy.  They,  too,  have  each 
a  previous  history.  Storms  and  winds  and  calms  are 
not  accidents,  but  brought  about  by  antecedent  cir- 
cumstances. Eest  and  Peace  are  but  calms  in  man's  in- 
ward nature,  and  arise  through  causes  as  definite  and  as 
inevitable. 

EeaUze  it  thoroughly :  it  is  a  methodical  not  an  acci- 
dental world.  If  a  housewife  turns  out  a  good  cake,  it 
is  the  result  of  a  sound  receipt,  carefully  applied.  She 
cannot  mix  the  assigned  ingredients  and  fire  them  for 
the  appropriate  time  without  producing  the  result.  It  is 
not  she  who  has  made  the  cake ;  it  is  nature.  She  brings 
related  things  together ;  sets  causes  at  work ;  these  causes 
bring  about  the  result.  She  is  not  a  creator,  but  an  in- 
termediary. She  does  not  expect  random  causes  to  pro- 
duce specific  effects— random  ingredients  would  only 
produce  random  cakes.  So  it  is  in  the  making  of  Chris- 
tian experiences.  Certain  lines  are  followed;  certain 
effects  are  the  result.  These  effects  cannot  but  be  the 
result.  But  the  result  can  never  take  place  without 
the  previous  cause.  To  expect  results  without  ante- 
cedents is  to  expect  cakes  without  ingredients.  That 
impossibility  is  precisely  the  almost  universal  expec- 
tation. 

Now  what  I  mainly  wish  to  do  is  to  help  you  firmly  to 
grasp  this  simple  principle  of  Cause  and  Effect  in  the 
spiritual  world.  And  instead  of  applying  the  principle 
generally  to  each  of  the  Christian  experiences  in  turn,  I 
shall  examine  its  application  to  one  in  some  little  detail. 
The  one  I  shall  select  is  Eest.    And  I  think  any  one  who 


Pax  Vobiscum,  1 3 

follows  the  application  in  this  single  instance  will  bo 
able  to  appl}^  it  for  himself  to  all  the  others. 

Take  such  a  sentence  as  this:  African  explorers  are 
subject  to  fevers  which  cause  restlessness  and  delirium. 
Note  the  expression,  *' cause  restlessness."-  Restless- 
ness has  a  cause.  Clearly,  then,  any  one  who  wished  to 
get  rid  of  restlessness  would  proceed  at  once  to  deal  with 
the  cause.  If  that  were  not  removed,  a  doctor  might 
prescribe  a  hundred  things,  and  all  might  be  taken  in 
turn,  without  producing  the  least  effect.  Things  are  so 
arranged  in  the  original  planning  of  the  world  that  cer- 
tain effects  must  follow  certain  causes,  and  certain 
causes  must  be  abohshed  before  certain  effects  can  be 
removed.  Certain  parts  of  Africa  are  inseparably  linked 
with  the  physical  experience  called  fever;  this  fever  is 
in  turn  infallibly  linked  with  a  mental  experience  called 
restlessness  and  delirium.  To  abolish  the  mental  experi- 
ence the  radical  method  would  be  to  abolish  the  physical 
experience,  and  the  way  of  abolishing  the  physical  ex- 
perience would  be  to  abolish  Africa,  or  to  cease  to  go 
there.  Now  this  holds  good  for  all  other  forms  of  Rest- 
lessness. Every  other  form  and  kind  of  Restlessness  in 
the  world  has  a  definite  cause,  and  the  particular  kind 
of  Restlessness  can  only  be  removed  by  removing  the 
allotted  cause. 

All  this  is  also  true  of  Rest.  Restlessness  has  a  cause : 
must  not  Rest  have  a  cause  ?  Necessarily.  If  it  were  a 
chance  world  we  would  not  expect  this;  but,  being  a 
methodical  world,  it  cannot  be  otherwise.  Rest,  physi- 
cal rest,  moral  rest,  spiritual  rest,  every  kind  of  rest 
has  a  cause,  as  certainly  as  restlessness.    Now  causes 


14  Pii''^  VobisciLin. 

are  discriminating.  There  is  one  kind  of  cause  for  every 
particular  effect,  and  no  other;  and  if  one  particular 
effect  is  desired,  the  corresponding  cause  must  be  set  in 
motion.  It  is  no  use  proposing  finely  devised  schemes, 
or  going  through  general  pious  exercises  in  the  hope  that 
somehow  Eest  will  come.  The  Christian  life  is  not 
casual,  but  causal.  All  nature  is  a  standing  protest 
against  the  absurdity  of  expecting  to  secure  spiritual 
effects,  or  any  effects,  without  tliC  employment  of  ap- 
propriate causes.  The  Great  Teacher  dealt  what  ought 
to  have  been  the  final  blow  to  this  infinite  irrelevancy  by 
a  single  question,  *'  Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or 
figs  of  thistles  ?" 

Why,  then,  did  the  Great  Teacher  not  educate  His  fol- 
lowers fully  ?  Why  did  He  not  tell  us,  for  example,  how 
such  a  thing  as  Rest  might  be  obtained  ?  The  answer  is, 
that  He  did.  But  plainly,  explicitly,  in  so  many  words  ? 
Yes,  plainly,  explicitly,  in  so  many  words.  He  assigned 
Rest  to  its  cause,  in  words  with  w^hich  each  of  us  has 
been  familiar  from  his  earliest  childhood. 

He  begins,  you  remember— for  you  at  once  know  the 
passage  I  refer  to— almost  as  if  Rest  could  be  had  with- 
out any  cause:  "Come  unto  me,"  He  says,  "and  I  will 
give  you  Rest." 

Rest,  apparently,  was  a  favor  to  be  bestowed ;  men  had 
but  to  come  to  Him ;  He  w^ould  give  it  to  every  appli- 
cant. But  the  next  sentence  takes  that  all  back.  The 
qualification,  indeed,  is  added  instantaneously.  For 
what  the  first  sentence  seemed  to  give  was  next  thing  to 
an  impossibility.  For  how,  in  a  literal  sense,  can  Rest 
be  given  ?    One  could  no  more  give  away  Rest  than  he 


Pax  Vobiscum,  1 5 

could  give  away  Laughter.  We  speak  of  "causing" 
laughter,  which  we  can  do;  but  we  cannot  give  it  away. 
When  we  speak  of  giving  pain,  we  know  perfectly  well 
we  cannot  give  pain  away.  A.nd  when  we  aim  at  giving 
pleasure,  all  that  we  do  is  to  arrange  a  set  of  circum- 
stances in  such  a  way  as  that  these  shall  cause  pleasure. 
Of  course  there  is  a  sense,  and  a  very  wonderful  sense, 
in  which  a  Great  Personality  breathes  upon  all  who 
come  within  its  influence  an  abiding  peace  and  trust. 
Men  can  be  to  other  men  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock 
in  a  weary  land:  much  more  Christ;  much  more  Christ 
as  Perfect  Man ;  much  more  still  as  Saviour  of  the  world. 
But  it  is  not  this  of  which  I  speak.  When  Christ  said 
He  would  give  men  Rest,  He  meant  simply  that  He 
would  put  them  in  the  way  of  it.  By  no  act  of  convey- 
ance would,  or  could.  He  make  over  His  own  Rest  to 
them.  He  could  give  them  His  receipt  for  it.  That  was 
all.  But  He  would  not  make  it  for  them.  For  one 
thing,  it  was  not  in  His  plan  to  make  it  for  them;  for 
another  thmg,  men  were  not  so  planned  that  it  could  be 
made  for  them;  and  for  yet  another  thing,  it  was  a 
thousand  times  better  that  they  should  make  it  for  them- 
selves. 

That  this  is  the  meaning  becomes  obvious  from  the 
wording  of  the  second  sentence:  "Learn  of  me  and  ye 
shall ^?id  Rest."  Rest,  that  is  to  say,  is  not  a  thing  that 
can  be  given,  but  a  thing  to  be  acquired.  It  comes  not 
by  an  act,  but  by  a  process.  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  a 
happy  hour,  as  one  finds  a  treasure ;  but  slowly,  as  one 
finds  knowledge.  It  could  indeed  be  no  more  found  in  a 
moment  than  could  knowledge.    A  soil  has  to  be  pre- 


1 6  Pax  V obis  cum, 

pared  for  it.  Like  a  fine  fruit,  it  will  grow  in  one 
climate  and  not  in  another ;  at  one  altitude  and  not  at 
another.  Like  all  growths  it  will  have  an  orderly  de- 
velopment and  mature  by  slow  degrees. 

The  nature  of  this  slow  process  Christ  clearly  defines 
when  He  says  we  are  to  achieve  Eest  by  learning. 
"  Learn  of  me,"  He  says,  "  and  ye  shall  find  rest  to  your 
souls."  Now  consider  the  extraordinary  originality  of 
this  utterance.  How  novel  the  connection  between  these 
two  words,  ''Learn "  and  "Rest "  ?  How  few  of  us  have 
ever  associated  them — ever  thought  that  Rest  was  a 
thing  to  be  learned;  ever  laid  ourselves  out  for  it  as 
we  would  to  learn  a  language;  ever  practised  it  as  we 
would  practise  the  violin  ?  Does  it  not  show  how  en- 
tirely new  Christ's  teaching  still  is  to  the  world,  that 
so  old  and  threadbare  an  aphorism  should  still  be  so 
little  known  ?  The  last  thing  most  of  us  would  have 
thought  of  would  have  been  to  associate  Rest  with  Worl<:. 

What  must  one  work  at  ?  What  is  that  which  if  duly 
learned  will  find  the  soul  of  man  in  Rest  ?  Christ 
answers  without  the  least  hesitation.  He  specifies  two 
things— Meekness  and  Lowliness.  "Learn  of  me,"  He 
says,  "for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart."  Now  these 
two  things  are  not  chosen  at  random.  To  these  accom- 
plishments, in  a  special  way,  Rest  is  attached.  Learn 
these,  in  short,  and  you  have  already  found  Rest.  These 
as  they  stand  are  direct  causes  of  Rest ;  will  produce  it  at 
once;  cannot  but  produce  it  at  once.  And  if  you  think 
for  a  single  moment,  j^ou  will  see  how  this  is  necessarily 
so,  for  causes  are  never  arbitrarj^,  and  the  connection  be- 


Pax  Vobisciim.  1 7 

tween  antecedent  and  consequent  here  and  everywhere 
lies  deep  in  the  nature  of  thin^. 

What  is  the  connection,  then?  I  answer  by  a  further 
question.  What  are  the  chief  causes  of  Unrest  f  If  you 
know  yourself,  you  will  answer,  Pride,  Selfishness,  Am- 
bition. As  you  look  back  upon  the  past  years  of  your 
life,  is  it  not  true  that  its  unhappiness  has  chiefly  come 
from  the  succession  of  personal  mortifications  and 
almost  trivial  disappointments  which  the  intercourse  of 
life  has  brought  you?  Great  trials  come  at  lengthened 
intervals,  and  we  rise  to  breast  them ;  but  it  is  the  petty 
friction  of  our  evory-day  life  with  one  another,  the  jar  of 
business  or  of  work,  the  discord  of  the  domestic  circle, 
the  collapse  of  om-  ambition,  the  crossing  of  cur  will  or 
the  taking  down  of  our  conceit,  which  make  inward 
peace  impossible.  Wounded  vanity,  then,  disappointed 
hopes,  unsatisfied  selfishness— these  are  the  old,  vulgar, 
universal  sources  of  man's  unrest.  Now  it  is  obvious 
why  Christ  pointed  out  as  the  two  chief  objects  for 
attainment  the  exact  opposites  of  these.  To  meekness 
and  lowliness  these  things  simply  do  not  exist.  They 
cure  unrest  by  making  it  impossible.  These  remedies  do 
not  trifle  with  surface  symptoms ;  they  strike  at  once  at 
removing  causes.  The  ceaseless  chagrin  of  a  self-centred 
life  can  be  removed  at  once  by  learning  meekness  and 
lowliness  of  heart.  He  who  learns  them  is  forever  proof 
against  it.  He  lives  henceforth  a  charmed  life.  Chris- 
tianity is  a  fine  inoculation,  a  transfusion  of  healthy 
blood  into  an  anaemic  or  poisoned  soul.  No  fever  can 
attack  a  perfectly  sound  body;  no  fever  of  unrest  can 
disturb  a  soul  which  has  breathed  the  air  or  learned  the 


1 8  Pax  Vobisciim, 

ways  of  Christ.  Men  sigh  for  the  wings  of  a  dove  that 
they  may  fly  away  and  be  at  Rest.  But  flying  away 
will  not  help  us.  "  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you:" 
We  aspire  to  the  top  to  look  for  Rest;  it  lies  at  the 
bottom.  Water  rests  only  when  it  gets  to  the  lowest 
place.  So  do  men.  Hence  be  lowly.  The  man  who  has 
no  opinion  of  himself  at  all  can  never  be  hurt  if  others 
do  not  acknowledge  him.  Hence,  be  meek.  He  who  is 
without  expectation  cannot  fret  if  nothing  comes  to  him. 
It  is  self-evident  that  these  things  are  so.  The  lowly 
man  and  the  meek  man  are  really  above  all  other  men, 
above  all  other  things.  They  dominate  the  world  because 
they  do  not  care  for  it.  The  miser  does  not  possess  gold, 
gold  possesses  him.  But  the  meek  possess  it.  "The 
meek,"  said  Christ,  "inherit  the  earth."  They  do  not 
buy  it;  they  do  not  conquer  it;  but  they  inherit  it. 

There  are  people  who  go  about  the  world  looking  out 
for  slights,  and  they  are  necessarily  miserable,  for  they 
find  them  at  every  turn— especially  the  imaginary  ones. 
One  has  the  same  pity  for  such  men  as  for  the  very  poor. 
They  are  the  morally  illiterate.  They  have  had  no  real 
education,  for  they  have  never  learned  how  to  live.  Few 
men  know  how  to  live.  We  grow  up  at  random,  carrying 
into  mature  life  the  merely  animal  methods  and  motives 
which  we  had  as  little  children.  And  it  does  not  occur 
to  us  that  all  this  must  be  changed ;  that  much  of  it  must 
be  reversed;  that  life  is  the  finest  of  the  Fine  Arts;  that 
it  has  to  be  learned  with  lifelong  patience,  and  that  the 
years  of  our  pilgrimage  are  all  too  short  to  master  it 
triumphantly. 

Yet  this  is  what  Christianity  is  for— to  teach  rnen  the 


Pax  Vobisaim.  19 

Art  of  Life.  And  its  whole  curriculum  lies  in  one  word 
— "  Learn  of  me."  Unlike  most  education,  this  is  almost 
purely  personal;  it  is  not  to  be  had  from  books  or 
lectures  or  creeds  or  doctrines.  It  is  a  study  from  the 
life.  Christ  never  said  much  in  mere  words  about  the 
Christian  graces.  He  lived  them,  He  was  them.  Yet 
we  do  not  merely  copy  Him.  We  learn  His  art  by 
living  with  Him,  like  the  old  apprentices  with  their 
masters. 

Now  we  understand  it  all  ?  Christ's  invitation  to  the 
weary  and  heavy-laden  is  a  call  to  begin  life  over  again 
upon  a  new  principle— upon  His  own  principle.  ''  Watch 
my  way  of  doing  things,"  He  says.  "Follow  me.  Take 
life  as  I  take  it.  Be  meek  and  lowly  and  you  will  find 
Rest." 

I  do  not  say,  remember,  that  the  Christian  life  to 
every  man,  or  to  any  man,  can  be  a  bed  of  roses.  No 
educational  process  can  be  this.  And  perhaps  if  some 
men  knew  how  much  was  involved  in  the  simple 
"learn"  of  Christ,  they  would  not  enter  His  school  with 
so  irresponsible  a  heart.  For  there  is  not  only  much  to 
learn,  but  much  to  unlearn.  Many  men  never  go  to  this 
school  at  all  till  their  disposition  is  already  half  ruined 
and  character  has  taken  on  its  fatal  set.  To  learn 
arithmetic  is  diflQcult  at  fifty — much  more  to  learn 
Christianity.  To  learn  simply  what  it  is  to  be  meek  and 
lowly,  in  the  case  of  one  who  has  had  no  lessons  in  that 
in  childhood,  may  cost  him  half  of  what  he  values  most 
on  earth.  Do  we  realize,  for  instance,  that  the  way  of 
teaching  humility  is  generally  by  humiliation}  There  is 
probably  no  other  school  for  it.     When  a  man  enters 


20  Pax  Vobiscum. 

himself  as  a  pupil  in  such  a  school  it  means  a  very  great 
thing.  There  is  much  Rest  there,  but  there  is  also  much 
Work. 

I  should  be  wrong,  even  though  my  theme  is  the 
brighter  side,  to  ignore  the  cross  and  minimize  the  cost. 
Only  it  gives  to  the  cross  a  more  definite  meaning,  and  a 
rarer  value,  to  connect  it  thus  directly  and  causally  with 
the  growth  of  the  inner  life.  Our  platitudes  on  the 
"benefits  of  affiiction"  are  usually  about  as  vague  as 
our  theories  of  Christian  Experience.  "Somehow,"  we 
believe  affliction  does  us  good.  But  it  is  not  a  question 
of  "  Somehow."  The  result  is  definite,  calculable,  neces- 
sary. It  is  under  the  strictest  law  of  cause  and  effect. 
The  first  effect  of  losing  one's  fortune,  for  instance,  is 
humiliation;  and  the  effect  of  humiliation,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  is  to  make  one  humble;  and  the  effect  of  being 
humble  is  to  produce  Rest.  It  is  a  roundabout  way, 
apparently,  of  producing  Rest;  but  Nature  generally 
works  by  circular  processes;  and  it  is  not  certain  that 
there  is  any  other  way  of  becoming  humble,  or  of  find- 
ing Rest.  If  a  man  could  make  himself  humble  to  order, 
it  might  simplify  matters,  but  we  do  not  find  that  this 
happens.  Hence  we  must  all  go  through  the  mill.  Hence 
death,  death  to  the  lower  self,  is  the  nearest  gate  and  the 
quickest  road  to  life. 

Yet  this  is  only  half  the  truth.  Christ's  life  outwardly 
was  one  of  the  most  troubled  lives  that  was  ever  lived: 
tempest  and  tumult,  tumult  and  tempest,  the  waves 
breaking  over  it  all  the  time  till  the  worn  body  was  laid 
in  the  grave.  But  the  inner  life  was  a  sea  of  glass.  The 
great  calm  was    always   there.    At  any  moment  you 


Pax  VobisciiDi.  21 

might  have  gone  to  Him  and  found  Rest.  And  even 
when  the  bloodhounds  were  dogging  Hitn  in  the  streets 
of  Jerusalem,  He  turned  to  His  disciples  and  offered 
them,  as  a  last  legacy,  "-  My  peace."  Nothing  even  for  a 
moment  broke  the  serenity  of  Christ's  life  on  earth. 
Misfortune  could  not  reach  Him;  He  had  no  fortune. 
Food,  raiment,  money— fountain-heads  of  half  the  world's 
weariness— He  simply  did  not  care  for;  they  played  no 
part  in  His  life ;  He  ''  took  no  thought "  for  them .  It  was 
impossible  to  affect  Him  by  lowering  His  reputation ;  He 
had  already  made  Himself  of  no  reputation.  He  was 
dumb  before  insult.  When  He  was  reviled,  He  reviled 
not  again.  In  fact,  there  was  nothing  that  the  world 
could  do  to  Him  that  could  ruffle  the  surface  of  His  spirit. 

Such  living,  as  mere  living,  is  altogether  unique.  It  is 
only  when  we  see  what  it  was  in  Him  that  we  can  know 
what  the  word  Rest  means.  It  lies  not  in  emotions,  nor 
in  the  absence  of  emotions.  It  is  not  a  hallowed  feeling 
that  comes  over  us  in  church.  It  is  not  something  that 
the  preacher  has  in  his  voice.  It  is  not  in  nature,  or  in 
poetry,  or  in  music— though  in  all  these  there  is  soothing. 
It  is  the  mind  at  leisure  from  itself.  It  is  the  perfect 
poise  of  the  soul;  the  absolute  adjustment  of  the  inward 
man  to  the  stress  of  all  outward  things ;  the  prepared- 
ness against  every  emergency ;  the  stability  of  assured 
convictions;  the  eternal  calm  of  an  invulnerable  faith; 
the  repose  of  a  heart  set  deep  in  God.  It  is  the  mood  of 
the  man  who  says,  with  Browning,  "  God's  in  His  Heaven, 
all's  well  with  the  world." 

Two  painters  each  painted  a  picture  to  illustrate  his 
conception  of  rest.    The  first  chose  for  his  scene  a  still, 


22  Pax  Vobiscum. 

lone  lake  among  the  far-off  mountains.  The  second  threw 
on  his  canvas  a  thundering  waterfall,  with  a  fragile  birch- 
tree  bending  over  the  foam ;  at  the  fork  of  a  branch,  al- 
most wet  with  the  cataract's  spray,  a  robin  sat  on  its 
nest.  The  first  was  only  Stagnation;  the  last  was  Rest. 
For  in  Rest  there  are  always  two  elements— tranquillity 
and  energy ;  silence  and  turbulence ;  creation  and  destruc- 
tion; fearlessness  and  fearfulness.  This  it  was  in  Christ. 
It  is  quite  plain  from  all  this  that  whatever  else  He 
claimed  to  be  or  to  do,  He  at  least  knew  how  to  live.  All 
this  is  the  perfection  of  living,  of  living  in  the  mere  sense 
of  passing  through  the  world  in  the  best  way.  Hence 
His  anxiety  to  communicate  His  idea  of  life  to  others. 
He  came,  He  said,  to  give  men  life,  true  life,  a  more 
abundant  life  than  they  were  living;  "the  life,"  as  the 
fine  phrase  in  the  Revised  Version  has  it,  "that  is  life 
indeed."  This  is  what  He  himself  possessed,  and  it  was 
this  which  He  offers  to  all  mankind.  And  hence  His  di- 
rect appeal  for  all  to  come  to  Him  who  had  not  made 
much  of  life,  vvho  were  weary  and  heavy-laden.  These 
He  would  teach  His  secret.  They,  also,  should  know 
"  the  hfe  that  is  hfe  indeed." 

WHAT  YOKES  ARE  FOR. 

There  is  still  one  doubt  to  clear  up.  After  the  state- 
ment. "  Learn  of  Me,"  Christ  throws  in  the  disconcerting 
qualification,  "  Take  my  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  Me." 
Why,  if  all  this  be  true,  does  He  call  it  a  yoke  f  Why, 
while  professing  to  give  Rest,  dues  He  with  the  next 
breath  whisper  '' burden  ^^f    Is  the  Christian  life,  after 


Pax  Vobisann.  23 

till,  what  its  enemies  take  it  for— an  additional  weight  to 
the  already  great  woe  of  life,  some  extra  punctiliousness 
about  duty,  some  painful  devotion  to  observances,  some 
heavy  restriction  and  trammelling  of  all  that  is  joyous 
and  free  in  the  world  ?  Is  life  not  hard  and  sorrowful 
enough  without  being  fettered  with  yet  another  yoke  ? 

It  is  astounding  how  so  glaring  a  misunderstanding  of 
this  plain  sAitence  should  ever  have  passed  into  currency. 
Did  you  ever  stop  to  ask  what  a  yoke  is  really  for?  Is  it 
to  be  a  burden  to  the  animal  which  wears  it?  It  is  just 
the  opposite.  It  is  to  make  its  burden  light.  Attached 
to  the  oxen  in  any  other  way  than  by  a  yoke,  the  plough 
would  be  intolerable.  Worked  by  means  of  a  yoke,  it  is 
light.  A  yoke  is  not  an  instrument  of  torture;  it  is  an 
instrument  of  mercy.  It  is  not  a  malicious  contrivance 
for  making  work  hard ;  it  is  a  gentle  device  to  make  hard 
labor  light.  It  is  not  meant  to  give  pain,  but  to  save 
pain.  And  yet  men  speak  of  the  yoke  of  Christ  as  if  it 
were  a  slavery,  and  look  upon  those  who  wear  it  as  ob- 
jects of  compassion.  For  generations  we  have  had  homi- 
lies on  "The  Yoke  of  Christ"— some  delighting  in  por- 
traying its  narrow  exactions;  some  seeking  in  these  ex- 
actions the  marks  of  its  divinity;  others  apologizing  for 
it,  and  toning  it  down;  still  others  assuring  us  that,  al- 
though it  be  very  bad,  it  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
positive  blessings  of  Christianity.  How  many,  especially 
among  the  young,  has  this  one  mistaken  phrase  driven 
forever  away  from  the  kingdom  "of  God  ?  Instead  of 
making  Christ  attractive,  it  makes  Him  out  a  taskmas- 
ter, narrowing  life  by  petty  restrictions,  calling  for  self- 
denial  \vliere  none  is  necessary,  making  misery  a  virtue 


24  P<^x  Vobiscum, 

under  the  plea  that  it  is  the  yoke  of  Christ,  and  happi- 
ness criminal  because  it  now  and  then  evades  it.  Ac- 
cording to  this  conception,  Christians  are  at  best  the  vic- 
tims of  a  depressing  fate;  their  life  is  a  penance;  and 
their  hope  for  the  next  world  purchased  by  a  slow  mar- 
tyrdom in  this. 

The  mistake  has  arisen  from  taking  the  word  "  yoke" 
here  in  the  same  sense  as  in  the  expressions  '"^'  under  the 
yoke,"  or  "  wear  the  yoke  in  his  youth."  But  in  Christ's 
illustration  it  is  not  W\QJugum  of  the  Roman  soldier,  but 
the  simple  "  harness"  or  "ox-collar"  of  the  Eastern  peas- 
ant. It  is  the  literal  wooden  yoke  which  He,  with  His 
own  hands  in  the  carpenter  shop,  had  probably  often 
made.  He  knew  the  difference  between  a  smooth  yoke 
and  a  rough  one,  a  bad  fit  and  a  good  fit ;  the  difference 
also  it  made  to  the  patient  animal  which  had  to  wear  it. 
The  rough  yoke  galled,  and  the  burden  was  heavy ;  the 
smooth  yoke  caused  no  pain,  and  the  load  was  lightly 
drawn.  The  badly  fitted  harness  was  a  misery;  the  well- 
fitted  collar  was  "easy." 

And  what  was  the  "  burden  "?  It  was  not  some  special 
burden  laid  upon  the  Christian,  some  unique  infliction 
that  they  alone  must  bear.  It  was  what  all  men  bear. 
It  was  simply  life,  human  life  itself,  the  general  burden 
of  life  which  all  must  carry  with  them  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave.  Christ  saw  that  men  took  life  painfully.  To 
some  it  was  a  weariness,  to  others  a  failure,  to  many  a 
tragedy,  to  all  a  struggle  and  a  pain.  How  to  carry  this 
burden  of  life  had  been  the  whole  world's  problem.  It  is 
still  the  whole  world's  problem.  And  here  is  Christ's  so- 
lution: "  Carry  it  as  I  do.    Take  life  as  I  take  it.    Look 


Pax  Vo  bis  cum.  25 

at  it  from  My  point  of  view.  Interpret  it  upon  My  prin- 
ciples. Take  My  yoke  and  leani  of  Me,  and  you  will  find 
it  easy.  For  My  yoke  is  easy,  works  easily,  sits  right 
upon  the  shoulders,  and  therefore  My  burden  is  light." 

There  is  no  suggestion  here  that  religion  will  absolve 
any  man  from  bearing  burdens.  That  would  be  to  absolve 
him  from  living,  since  it  is  Ufe  itself  that  is  the  burden. 
What  Christianity  does  propose  is  to  make  it  tolerable. 
Christ's  yoke  is  simply  His  secret  for  the  alleviation  of 
human  life,  His  prescription  for  the  best  and  happiest 
method  of  living.  Men  harness  themselves  to  the  work 
and  stress  of  the  world  in  clumsy  and  unnatural  ways. 
The  harness  they  put  on  is  antiquated.  A  rough,  ill- 
fitted  collar  at  the  best,  they  make  its  stra-n  and  fric- 
tion past  enduring,  by  placing  it  where  the  neck  is  most 
sensitive ;  and  by  mere  continuous  irritation  this  sensi- 
tiveness increases  until  the  whole  nature  is  quick  and 
sore. 

This  is  the  origin,  among  other  things,  of  a  disease 
called  "  touchiness"— a  disease  which,  in  spite  of  its  inno- 
cent name,  is  one  of  the  gravest  sources  of  restlessness  in 
the  world.  Touchiness,  when  it  becomes  chronic,  is  a 
morbid  condition  of  the  inward  disposition.  It  is  self- 
love  inflamed  to  the  acute  point;  conceit,  ivith  a  hair- 
trigger.  The  cure  is  to  shift  the  yoke  to  some  other 
place;  to  let  men  and  things  touch  us  through  some  new 
and  perhaps  as  yet  unused  part  of  our  nature ;  to  become 
meek  and  lowly  in  heart  while  the  old  sensitiveness  is 
becoming  numb  from  want  of  use.  It  is  the  beautiful 
work  of  Christianity  everywhere  to  adjust  the  burden 
of  life  to  those  who  bear  it,  and  them  to  it.    It  has  a  per- 


26  Pax  Vobiscum. 

f  ectly  miraculous  gift  of  healing.  Without  doing  any  vio- 
lence to  human  nature  it  sets  it  right  with  life,  harmon- 
izing it  with  all  surrounding  things,  and  restoring  those 
who  are  jaded  with  the  fatigue  and  dust  of  the  world  to 
a  new  grace  of  living.  In  the  mere  matter  of  altering 
the  perspective  of  life  and  changing  the  proportions  of 
things,  its  function  in  lightening  the  care  of  man  is  alto- 
gether its  own.  The  weight  of  a  load  depends  upon  the 
attraction  of  the  earth.  Suppose  the  attraction  of  the 
earth  were  removed  ?  A  ton  on  some  other  planet,  where 
the  attraction  of  gravity  is  less,  does  not  weigh  half  a 
ton.  Now  Christianity  removes  the  attraction  of  the 
earth ;  and  this  is  one  way  in  which  it  diminishes  man's 
burden.  It  makes  them  citizens  of  another  world.  What 
was  a  ton  yesterday  is  not  half  a  ton  to-day.  So  without 
changing  one's  circumstances,  merely  by  off ering  a  wider 
horizon  and  a  different  standard,  it  alters  the  whole  as- 
pect of  the  world. 

Christianity  as  Christ  taught  is  the  truest  philosophy 
of  life  ever  spoken.  But  let  us  be  quite  sure  when  we 
speak  of  Christianity  that  we  mean  Christ's  Christianity. 
Other  versions  are  either  caricatures,  or  exaggerations,  or 
misunderstandings,  or  shortsighted  and  surface  readings. 
For  the  most  part  their  attainment  is  hopeless  and  the 
results  wretched.  But  I  care  not  who  the  person  is,  or 
through  what  vale  of  tears  he  has  passed,  or  is  about  to 
pass,  there  is  a  new  life  for  him  along  this  path. 


Pax  Vobiscitin.  27 


HOW  FRUITS  GROW. 

Were  Rest  my  subject,  there  are  other  things  I  should 
wish  to  say  about  it,  a  ad  other  kinds  of  Rest  of  which  I 
should  like  to  speak.  But  that  is  not  my  subject.  My 
theme  is  that  the  Christian  experiences  are  not  the  work 
of  magic,  but  come  under  the  law  of  Cause  and  Effect. 
And  I  have  chosen  Rest  only  as  a  single  illustration  of 
the  working  of  that  principle.  If  there  were  time  I 
might  next  run  over  all  the  Christian  experiences  in  turn, 
and  show  how  the  same  mde  law  applies  to  ea^h.  But  I 
think  it  may  serve  the  better  purpose  if  I  leave  this 
further  exercise  to  yourselves.  I  know  no  Bible  study 
that  you  will  find  more  full  of  fruit,  or  which  will  take 
you  nearer  to  the  ways  of  God,  or  make  the  Christian 
life  itself  more  sohd  or  more  sure.  I  shall  add  only  a 
single  other  illustration  of  what  I  mean,  before  I  close. 

Where  does  Joy  come  from  ?  I  knew  a  Sunday  scholar 
whose  conception  of  Joy  was  that  it  was  a  thing  made  in 
lumps  and  kept  somewhere  in  Heaven,  and  that  when 
people  prayed  for  it,  pieces  were  somehow  let  down  and 
fitted  into  their  souls.  I  am  not  sure  that  views  as  gross 
and  material  are  not  often  held  by  people  who  ought  to 
be  wiser.  In  reality,  Joy  is  as  much  a  matter  of  Cause  and 
Effect  as  pain.  No  one  can  get  Joy  by  merely  asking  for 
it.  It  is  one  of  the  ripest  fruits  of  the  Christian  life,  and, 
like  all  fruits,  must  be  grown.  There  is  a  very  clever 
trick  in  India  called  the  mango-trick.    A  seed  is  put  in 


28  Pax  Vobiscum, 

the  ground  and  covered  up,  and  after  diverse  incantations 
a  fuli-blown  mango-bush  appears  within  five  minutes. 
I  never  met  any  one  who  knew  how  the  thing  was  done, 
but  I  never  met  any  one  who  beheved  it  to  be  anything 
else  than  a  conjuring-trick.  The  world  is  pretty  unani- 
mous now  in  its  belief  in  the  orderliness  of  Nature.  Men 
may  not  know  how  fruits  grow,  but  they  do  know  that 
they  cannot  grow  in  an  hour.  Some  lives  have  not  even 
a  stalk  on  which  fruits  could  hang,  even  if  they  did  grow 
in  an  hour.  Some  have  never  planted  one  sound  seed  of 
Joy  in  all  their  lives ;  and  others  who  may  have  planted 
a  germ  or  two  have  lived  so  little  in  sunshine  that  they 
never  could  come  to  maturity. 

Whence,  then,  is  Joy  ?  Christ  put  His  teaching  upon 
this  subject  into  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  His  para- 
bles. I  should  in  any  instance  have  appealed  to  His 
teaching  here,  as  in  the  case  of  Eest,  for  I  do  not  wish 
you  to  think  I  am  speaking  words  of  my  own.  But  it  so 
happens  that  He  has  dealt  with  it  in  words  of  imusual 
fulness. 

I  need  not  recall  the  whole  illustration.  It  is  the  para- 
ble of  the  Vine.  Did  you  ever  think  why  Christ  spoke 
that  parable  ?  He  did  not  merely  throw  it  into  space 
as  a  fine  illustration  of  general  truths.  It  was  not  simply 
a  statement  of  the  mystical  union,  and  the  doctrine  of 
an  indwelling  Christ.  It  was  that;  but  it  was  more. 
After  He  had  said  it.  He  did  what  was  not  an  unusual 
thing  when  He  was  teaching  His  greatest  lessons.  He 
turned  to  the  disciples  and  said  He  would  tell  them  why 
He  had  spoken  it.  It  was  to  tell  them  how  to  get  Joy. 
*'  These  things  have  I  spoken  unto  you,"  He  said,  "  that 


Pax  Vobiscum,  29 

My  Joy  might  remain  in  you  and  that  your  Joy  might 
be  full."  It  was  a  purposed  and  deliberate  communica- 
tion of  His  secret  of  Happiness. 

Go  back  over  these  verses,  then,  and  you  will  find  the 
Causes  of  this  Effect,  the  spring,  and  the^  only  spring,  out 
of  which  true  Happiness  comes.  I  am  not  going  to  ana- 
lyze them  in  detail.  T  ask  you  to  enter  into  the  words 
for  yourselves.  Remember,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
Vine  was  the  Eastern  symbol  of  Joy.  It  was  its  fruit 
that  made  glad  the  heart  of  man.  Yet,  however  inno- 
cent that  gladness— for  the  expressed  juice  of  the  grape 
was  the  common  drink  at  every  peasant's  board— the 
gladness  was  only  a  gross  and  passing  thing.  This  was 
not  true  happiness,  and  the  vine  of  the  Palestine  vine- 
yards was  not  the  true  vine.  Christ  was  "the  true 
Vine."  Here,  then,  is  the  ultimate  source  of  Joy. 
Through  whatever  media  it  reaches  us,  all  true  Joy  and 
Gladness  find  their  source  in  Christ.  By  this,  of  course, 
is  not  meant  that  the  actual  Joy  experienced  is  trans- 
ferred from  Christ's  nature,  or  is  something  passed  on 
from  Him  to  us.  What  is  passed  on  is  His  method  of 
getting  it.  There  is,  indeed,  a  sense  in  which  we  can 
share  another's  joy  or  another's  sorrow.  But  that  is 
another  matter.  Christ  is  the  source  of  Joy  to  men  in 
the  sense  in  which  He  is  the  source  of  Rest.  His  people 
share  His  life,  and  therefore  share  its  consequences,  and 
one  of  these  is  Joy.  His  method  of  living  is  one  that  in 
the  nature  of  things  produces  Joy.  When  He  spoke  of 
His  Joy  remaining  with  us  He  meant  in  part  that  the 
causes  which  produced  it  should  continue  to  act.  His 
followers,  that  is  to  say,  by  repeating  His  life  would  ex- 


30  Pax  Vobisciun. 

perience  its  accompaniments.  His  Joy,  His  kind  of  Joy, 
would  remain  with  them. 

The  medium  through  which  this  Joy  comes  is  next  ex- 
plained: "He  that;  abideth  in  Me,  the  same  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit."  Fruit  first,  Joy  next;  the  one  the 
cause  or  medium  of  the  other.  Fruit-bearing  is  the 
necessary  antecedent;  Joy  both  the  necessary  conse- 
quent and  the  necessary  accompaniment.  It  lay  partly 
in  the  bearing  fruit,  partly  in  the  fellowship  which  made 
that  possible.  Partly,  that  is  to  say,  Joy  lay  in  mere 
constant  living  in  Christ's  presence,  with  all  that  that 
implied  of  peace,  of  shelter,  and  of  love;  partly  in  the 
influence  of  that  Life  upon  mind  and  character  and  will; 
and  partly  in  the  inspiration  to  live  and  work  for  others, 
with  all  that  that  brought  of  self-riddance  and  joy  in 
others'  gain.  All  these,  in  different  waj^s  and  at  different 
times,  are  sources  of  pure  Happiness.  Even  the  simplest 
of  them— to  do  good  to  other  people— is  an  instant  and 
infallible  specific.  There  is  no  mystery  about  Happiness 
whatever.  Put  in  the  right  ingredients  and  it  must  come 
out.  He  that  abideth  in  Him  will  bring  forth  much 
fruit ;  and  bringing  forth  much  fruit  is  Happiness.  The 
infallible  receipt  for  Happiness,  then,  is  to  do  good;  and 
the  infallible  receipt  for  doing  good  is  to  abide  in  Christ. 
The  surest  proof  that  all  this  is  a  plain  matter  of  Cause 
and  Effect  is  that  men  may  try  every  other  conceivable 
way  of  finding  happiness,  and  thej^  will  fail.  Only  the 
right  cause  in  each  case  can  produce  the  right  effect. 

Then  the  Christian  experiences  are  our  own  making  ? 
In  the  same  sense  in  which  grapes  are  our  own  making, 
and  no  more.    All  fruits  g^row— whether  they  grow  in  the 


Pax  Vobiscuin.  31 

soil  or  in  the  soul;  whether  they  are  the  fruits  of  the 
wild  grape  or  of  the  True  Vine.  No  man  can  make  things 
grow.  He  can  get  them  to  grow  by  arranging  all  the 
circumstances  and  fulfilling  all  the  conditions.  But  the 
growing  is  done  by  God.  Causes  and  effects  are  eternal 
arrangements,  set  in  the  constitution  of  the  world;  fixed 
beyond  man's  ordering.  What  man  can  do  is  to  place 
himself  in  the  midst  of  a  chain  of  spquences.  Thus  he 
cen  get  things  to  grow:  thus  he  himself  can  grow.  But 
the  grower  is  the  Spirit  of  God. 

What  more  need  I  add  but  this— test  the  method  by 
experiment.  Do  not  imagine  that  you  have  got  these 
things  because  you  know  how  to  get  them.  As  well  try 
to  feed  upon  a  cookery  book.  But  I  think  I  can  promise 
that  if  you  try  in  this  simple  and  natural  way,  you  will 
not  fail.  Spend  the  time  you  have  spent  in  sighing  for 
fruits  in  fulfilling  the  conditions  of  their  growth.  The 
fruits  will  come,  must  come.  We  have  hitherto  paid 
immense  attention  to  effects,  to  the  mere  experiences 
themselves;  we  have  described  them,  extolled  them, 
advised  them,  prayed  for  them — done  everything  but 
find  out  what  caused  them.  Henceforth  let  us  deal  with 
causes.  "To  be,"  says  Lotze,  ''is  to  be  in  relations." 
About  every  other  method  of  living  the  Christian  life 
there  is  an  uncertainty.  About  every  other  method  of 
acquiring  the  Christian  experiences  there  is  a  "perhaps." 
But  in  so  far  as  this  method  is  the  way  of  nature,  it  can- 
not fail.  Its  guarantee  is  the  laws  of  the  universe— and 
these  are  "  the  Hands  of  the  Living  God." 


32  .   Pax  Vobiscum. 


THE  TRUE  VINE. 

"I  AM  the  true  vine,  and  my  Father  is  the  husband- 
man. Every  branch  in  me  that  beareth  not  fruit  he 
taketh  away:  and  every  branch  that  beareth  fruit,  he 
purge th  it,  that  it  may  bring  forth  more  fruit.  Now  ye 
are  clean  through  the  word  which  I  have  spoken  unto 
you.  Abide  in  me,  and  I  in  you.  As  the  branch  cannot 
bear  fruit  of  itself,  except  it  abide  in  the  vine ;  no  more 
can  ye,  except  ye  abide  in  me.  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the 
branches:  He  that  abideth  in  me,  and  I  in  him,  the  same 
bringeth  forth  much  fruit:  for  without  me  ye  can  do 
nothing.  If  a  man  abide  not  in  me,  he  is  cast  forth  as  a 
branch,  and  is  withered ;  and  men  gather  them,  and  cast 
them  into  the  fire,  and  they  are  burned.  If  ye  abide  in  me, 
and  my  word  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and 
it  shall  be  done  unto  you.  Herein  is  my  Father  glorified, 
that  ye  bear  much  fruit;  so  ye  shall  be  my  disciples. 
As  the  Father  hath  loved  me,  so  have  I  loved  you :  con- 
tinue ye  in  my  love.  If  ye  keep  my  commandments,  ye 
shall  abide  in  my  love;  even  as  I  have  kept  my  Father's 
commandments,  and  abide  in  his  love.  These  things 
have  I  spoken  unto  you,  that  my  joy  might  remain  in 
you,  and  that  your  joy  might  be  full." 


THE  END. 


THE  GREATEST  THING  IN 
THE  WORLD. 


Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels,  and 
have  not  Love,  I  am  become  as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tinkling 
cymbal.  And  though  I  have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  under- 
stand all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge ;  and  though  I  have  all 
faith,  so  that  I  could  remove  mountains,  and  have  not  Love,  I  am 
nothing.  And  though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor, 
and  though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  Love,  it 
profiteth  me  nothing. 


Love  suffereth  long,  and  is  kind  ; 

Love  envietli  not ; 

Love  vaimteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed  up, 

Doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly, 

Seeketh  not  her  own, 

Is  not  easily  provoked, 

Thinketh  no  evil ; 

Rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in  the  truth ; 

Beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things,  hopeth  all  things. 

endmeth  all  thmgs. 


Love  never  faileth :  but  whether  there  be  prophecies,  they 
shall  fail ;  whether  there  be  tongues,  they  shall  cease  ;  whether 
there  be  knowledge,  it  shall  vanish  away.  For  we  know  in  part, 
and  we  prophesy  in  part.  But  w^hen  that  which  is  perfect  is 
come,  then  that  which  is  in  part  shall  be  done  away.  When  I 
was  a  child,  I  spake  as  a  child,  I  understood  as  a  child,  I  thought 
as  a  child  :  but  when  I  became  a  man,  I  put  away  childish  things. 
For  now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly  ;  but  then  face  to  face  : 
now  I  know  in  part ;  but  then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am 
known.  And  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  Love,  these  three  ;  but 
the  greatest  of  these  is  Love. — 1  Cor.  xiii. 


THE 

GREATEST  THING  IN  THE  WORLD. 


Every  one  has  asked  himself  the  great  question  of 
antiquity  as  of  the  modern  world:  What  is  the  simimum 
honum — the  supreme  good  ?  You  have  life  before  you. 
Once  only  you  can  live  it.  What  is  the  noblest  object  of 
desire,  the  supreme  gift  to  covet  ? 

We  have  been  accustomed  to  be  told  that  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  religious  world  is  Faith.  That  great  word 
has  been  the  key-note  for  centuries  of  the  popular  rehg- 
ion ;  and  we  have  easily  learned  to  look  upon  it  as  the 
greatest  thing  in  the  world.  Well,  we  are  wrong.  If  we 
have  been  told  that,  we  may  miss  the  mark.  I  have 
taken  you,  in  the  chapter  which  I  have  just  read,  to 
Christianity  at  its  source;  and  there  we  have  seen,  "  The 
greatest  of  these  is  love."  It  is  not  an  oversight.  Paul 
was  speaking  of  faith  just  a  moment  before.  He  says, 
"  If  I  have  all  faith,  so  that  I  can  remove  mountains,  and 
have  not  love,  I  am  nothing."  So  far  from  forgetting, 
he  deliberately  contrasts  them,  "Now  abideth  Faith, 
Hope,   Love,"  and  without  a  moment's  hesitation  the 

decision  faUs,  "  The  greatest  of  these  is  Love." 

37 


38  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World, 

And  it  is  not  prejudice.  A  man  is  apt  to  recommend 
to  others  his  own  strong  point.  Love  was  not  Paul's 
strong  point.  The  observing  student  can  detect  a  beauti- 
ful tenderness  growing  and  ripening  all  through  his 
character  as  Paul  gets  old;  but  the  hand  that  wrote, 
*'The  greatest  of  these  is  love,"  when  we  meet  it  first,  is 
stained  with  blood. 

Nor  is  this  letter  to  the  Corinthians  peculiar  in  singling 
out  love  as  the  summum  honum.  The  masterpieces  of 
Christianity  are  agreed  about  it.  Peter  says,  "  Above  aE 
things  have  fervent  love  among  yourselves."  Above  all 
things.  And  John  goes  farther,  "God  is  love."  And 
you  remember  the  profound  remark  which  Paul  makes 
elsewhere,  "Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law."  Did  you 
ever  think  what  he  meant  by  that  ?  In  those  days  men 
were  working  their  passage  to  Heaven  by  keeping  the 
Ten  Commandments,  and  the  hundred  and  ten  other 
commandments  which  they  had  manufactured  out  of 
them.  Christ  said,  I  will  show  you  a  more  simple  way. 
If  you  do  one  thing,  you  will  do  these  hundred  and  ten 
things,  without  ever  thinking  about  them.  If  you  love, 
you  will  unconsciously  fulfil  the  whole  law.  And  you 
can  readily  see  for  yourselves  how  that  must  be  so.  Take 
any  of  the  commandments.  "  Thou  shalt  have  no  other 
gods  before  Me."  If  a  man  love  God,  you  will  not  require 
to  tell  him  that.  Love  is  the  fulfiUing  of  that  law. 
"Take  not  His  name  in  vain."  Would  he  ever  dream  of 
taking  His  name  in  vain  if  he  loved  Him  ?  "Eemember 
the  Sabbath  day  to  keep  it  holy."  Would  he  not  be  too 
glad  to  have  one  day  in  seven  to  dedicate  more  exclu- 
sively to  the  object  of  his  affection  ?   Love  would  fulfil  all 


The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World.  39 

these  laws  regarding  God.  And  so,  if  he  loved  Man,  you 
would  never  think  of  telling  him  to  honor  his  father 
and  mother.  He  could  not  do  anything  else.  It  would 
be  preposterous  to  tell  him  not  to  kill.  You  could  only 
insult  him  if  you  suggested  that  he  should  not  steal— how 
could  he  steal  from  those  he  loved  ?  It  would  be  super- 
fluous to  beg  him  not  to  bear  false  witness  against  his 
neighbor.  If  he  loved  him  it  would  be  the  last  thing  he 
would  do.  And  you  would  never  dream  of  urging  him 
not  to  covet  what  his  neighbors  had.  He  would  rather 
they  possessed  it  than  himself.  In  this  way  "Love  is  the 
fulfilling  of  the  law."  It  is  the  rule  for  fulfilling  all 
rules,  the  new  commandment  for  keeping  all  the  old 
commandments,  Christ's  one  secret  of  the  Christian  hfe. 

Now  Paul  had  learned  that;  and  in  this  noble  eulogy 
he  has  given  us  the  most  wonderful  and  original  account 
extant  of  the  summum  honum.  We  may  divide  it  into 
three  parts.  In  the  beginning  of  the  short  chapter,  we 
have  Love  contrasted ;  in  the  heart  of  it,  we  have  Love 
analyzed ;  towards  the  end,  we  have  Love  defended  as 
the  supreme  gift. 

THE  CONTEAST. 

Paul  begins  by  contrasting  Love  with  other  things 
that  men  in  those  days  thought  much  of.  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  go  over  those  things  in  detail.  Their  in- 
feriority is  already  obvious. 

He  contrasts  it  with  eloquence.  And  what  a  noble 
gift  it  is,  the  power  of  playing  upon  the  souls  and  wills 
of  men,  and  rousing  them  to  lofty  purposes  and  holy 
deeds.    Paul  says,  "If  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men 


40  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

and  of  angels,  and  have  not  love,  I  am  become  as  sound- 
ing brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal."  And  we  all  know 
■why.  We  have  all  felt  the  brazenness  of  words  without 
emotion,  the  hollowness,  the  unaccountable  unpersua- 
siveness,  of  eloquence  behind  which  lies  no  Love. 

He  contrasts  it  with  prophecy.  He  contrasts  it  with 
mysteries.  He  contrasts  it  with  faith.  He  contrasts  it 
with  charity.  Why  is  Love  greater  than  faith  ?  Be- 
cause the  end  is  greater  than  the  means.  And  why 
is  it  greater  than  charity  ?  Because  the  whole  is  greater 
than  the  part.  Love  is  greater  than  faith,  because  Uie 
end  is  greater  than  the  means.  What  is  the  use  of 
having  faith  ?  It  is  to  connect  the  soul  with  God. 
And  what  is  the  object  of  connecting  man  with  God  ? 
That  he  may  become  like  God.  But  God  is  Love. 
Hence  Faith,  the  means,  is  in  order  to  Love,  the  end. 
Love,  therefore,  obviously  is  greater  than  faith.  It  is 
greater  than  charity,  again,  because  the  whole  is  greater 
than  a  part.  Charity  is  only  a  little  bit  of  Love,  one  of 
the  innumerable  avenues  of  Love,  and  there  may  even 
be,  and  there  is,  a  great  deal  of  charity  without  Love. 
It  is  a  very  easy  thing  to  toss  a  copper  to  a  beggar  on 
the  street;  it  is  generally  an  easier  thing  than  not  to  do 
it.  Yet  Love  is  just  as  often  in  the  withholding.  We 
purchase  relief  from  the  sympathetic  feelings  roused  by 
the  spectacle  of  misery,  at  the  copper's  cost.  It  is  too 
cheap— too  cheap  for  us,  and  often  too  dear  for  the  beg- 
gar. If  we  really  loved  him  we  would  either  do  more 
for  him,  or  less.  JC,-f. . 

Then  Paul  contrasts  it  with  sacrifice  and  martyrdom. 
And  I  beg  the  little  band  of  would-be  missionaries— and 


The  Greatest  T J  ting  in  the  World.  41 

I  have  the  honor  to  call  some  of  you  by  this  name  for 
the  first  time— to  remember  that  though  you  give  your 
bodies  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  Love,  it  profits 
nothing— nothing !  You  can  take  nothing  greater  to  the 
heathen  world  than  the  impress  and  reflection  of  the 
Love  of  God  upon  your  own  character.  That  is  the 
universal  language.  It  will  take  you  years  to  speak  in 
Chinese,  or  in  the  dialects  of  India.  From  the  day  you 
land,  that  language  of  Love,  understood  by  all,  will  be 
pouring  forth  its  unconscious  eloquence.  It  is  the  man 
who  is  the  missionary,  it  is  not  his  words.  His  charac- 
ter is  his  message.  In  the  heart  of  Africa,  among  the 
great  Lakes,  I  have  come  across  black  men  and  women 
who  remembered  the  only  white  man  they  ever  saw  be- 
fore—David Livingstone ;  and  as  you  cross  his  footsteps  in 
that  dark  continent,  men's  faces  light  up  as  they  speak  of 
the  kind  Doctor  who  passed  there  years  ago.  They  could 
not  understand  him;  but  they  felt  the  Love  that  beat  in 
his  heart.  Take  into  your  new  sphere  of  labor,  where 
you  also  mean  to  lay  down  your  life,  that  simple  charm, 
and  your  lifework  must  succeed.  You  can  take  nothing 
greater,  you  need  not  take  nothing  less.  It  is  not  worth 
while  going  if  you  take  anything  less.  You  may  take 
every  accomplishment ;  you  may  be  braced  for  every 
sacrifice;  but  if  you  give  your  body  to  be  burned,  and 
have  not  Love,  it  wiU  profit  you  and  the  cause  of  Christ 
nothing. 

THE  ANALYSIS. 

After  contrasting  Love  with  these  things,  Paul,  in 
three  verses,  very  short,  gives  us  an  amazing  analysis  of 


42  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

what  this  supreme  thing  is.  I  ask  you  to  look  at  it.  It 
is  a  compound  thing,  he  tells  us.  It  is  like  light.  As 
you  have  seen  a  man  of  science  take  a  beam  of  light  and 
pass  it  through  a  crystal  prism,  as  you  have  seen  it  come 
ont  on  the  other  side  of  the  prism  broken  up  into  its 
component  colors— red,  and  blue,  and  yellow,  and  violet, 
and  orange,  and  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow— so  Paul 
passes  this  thing,  Love,  through  the  magnificent  prism 
of  his  inspired  intellect,  and  it  comes  out  on  the  other 
side  broken  up  into  its  elements.  And  in  these  few 
words  we  have  what  one  might  call  the  Spectrum  of 
Love,  the  analysis  of  Love.  Will  you  observe  what  its 
elements  are  ?  Will  you  notice  that  they  have  common 
names ;  that  they  are  virtues  which  we  hear  about  every 
day,  that  they  are  things  which  can  be  practised  by 
every  man  in  every  place  in  life;  and  how,  by  a  multi- 
tude of  small  things  and  ordinary  virtues,  the  supreme 
thing,  the  summum  bonum,  is  made  up  ? 

The  Spectrum  of  Love  has  nine  ingredients  :— 
Patience    .    .    "Love  suffereth  long." 
Kindness    .    .    "And  is  kind." 
Generosity     .    "  Love  envieth  not." 
Humility        .    ' '  Love  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed 

up." 
Courtesy   .    .    "  Doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly." 
Unselfishness     "  Seeketh  not  her  own." 
Good  Temper     "  Is  not  easily  provoked." 
Guilelessness     "  Thinketh  no  evil." 
Sincerity    .     .    "  Rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth 

in  the  truth." 


TJic  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World.  43 

Patience;  kindness;  generosity;  humility;  courtesy; 
unselfishness;  good  temper;  guilelessness ;  sincerity — 
these  make  up  the  supreme  gift,  the  stature  of  the  per- 
fect man.  You  will  observe  that  all  are  in  relation  to 
men,  in  relation  to  life,  in  relation  to  the  known  to-day 
and  the  near  to-morrow,  and  not  to  the  unknown  eter- 
nity. We  hear  much  of  love  to  God ;  Christ  spoke  much 
of  love  to  man.  We  make  a  great  deal  of  peace  with 
heaven ;  Christ  made  much  of  peace  on  earth.  Religion 
is  not  a  strange  or  added  thing,  but  the  inspiration  of  the 
secular  life,  the  breathing  of  an  eternal  spirit  through 
this  temporal  world.  The  supreme  thing,  in  short,  is  not 
a  thing  at  all,  but  the  giving  of  a  further  finish  to  the 
multitudinous  words  and  acts  which  make  up  the  sum 
of  every  common  day. 

There  is  no  time  to  do  more  than  make  a  passing  note 
upon  each  of  these  ingredients.  Love  is  Patience.  This 
is  the  normal  attitude  of  Love;  Love  passive.  Love  wait- 
ing to  begin;  not  in  a  hurry;  calm ;  ready  to  do  its  work 
when  the  summons  comes,  but  meantime  wearing  the 
ornament  of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit.  Love  suffers  long; 
beareth  all  things;  believeth  all  things;  hopeth  all 
things.    For  Love  understands,  and  therefore  waits. 

Kindness.  Love  active.  Have  you  ever  noticed  how 
much  of  Christ's  hfe  was  spent  in  doing  kind  things— in 
merely  doing  kind  things  ?  Rim  over  it  with  that  in 
view,  and  you  will  find  that  He  spent  a  great  proportion 
of  His  time  simply  in  making  people  happy,  in  doing 
good  turns  to  people.  There  is  only  one  tiling  greater 
than  happiness  in  the  world,  and  that  is  holiness;  and  it  • 
is  not  in  our  keeping;  but  what  God  has  put  in  our 


44  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

power  is  the  happiness  of  those  about  us,  and  that  is 
largely  to  be  secured  by  our  being  kind  to  them. 

<<  The  greatest  thing,"  says  some  one,  "a  man  can  do 
for  his  Heavenly  Father  is  to  be  kind  to  some  of  His 
other  children."  I  wonder  why  it  is  that  we  are  not  all 
kinder  than  we  are  ?  How  much  the  world  needs  it ! 
How  easily  it  is  done!  How  instantaneously  it- acts! 
How  infallibly  it  is  remembered !  How  superabundantly 
it  pays  itself  back !— for  there  is  no  debtor  in  the  world  so 
honorable,  so  superbly  honorable,  as  Love.  "Love 
never  faileth."  Love  is  success,  Love  is  happiness,  Love 
is  life.  "Love,  I  say,"  with  Browning,  "is  energy  of 
Life." 

**  For  life,  with  all  it  yields  of  joy  or  woe 
And  hope  and  fear. 

Is  just  our  chance  o'  the  prize  of  learning  love, — 
How  love  might  be,  hath  been  indeed,  and  is." 

Where  Love  is,  God  is.  He  that  dwelleth  in  Love 
dwelleth  in  God.  God  is  Love.  Therefore  love.  With- 
out distinction,  without  calculation,  without  procrasti- 
nation, love.  Lavish  it  upon  the  poor,  where  it  is  very 
easy;  especially  upon  the  rich,  who  often  need  it  most; 
most  of  all  upon  our  equals,  where  it  is  very  difficult, 
and  for  whom  perhaps  we  each  do  least  of  all.  There  is 
a  difference  between  trying  to  please  ari^  giving  pleasure. 
Give  pleasure.  Lose  no  chance  of  giving  pleasure.  For 
that  is  the  ceaseless  and  anonymous  triumph  of  a  truly 
loving  spirit.  "I  shall  pass  through  this  world  but 
once.  Any  good  thing  therefore  that  I  can  do,  or  any 
kindness  that  I  can  show  to  any  human  being,  let  me  do 


The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World.  45 

it  now.  Let  me  not  defer  it  or  neglect  it,  for  I  shall  not 
pass  this  way  again." 

Generosity.  "Love  envieth not."  This  is  love  in  com- 
petition with  others.  Whenever  you  attempt  a  good 
work  you  will  find  other  men  doing  the  same  kind  of 
work,  and  probably  doing  it  better.  Envy  them  not. 
Envy  is  a  feeling  of  ill-will  to  those  who  are  in  the  same 
line  as  ourselves,  a  spirit  of  covetousness  and  detraction. 
How  little  Christian  work  even  is  a  protection  against 
un-Christian  feeling !  That  most  despicable  of  all  the  un- 
worthy moods  which  cloud  a  Christian's  soul  assuredly 
waits  for  us  on  the  threshold  of  every  work,  unless  we 
are  fortified  with  this  grace  of  magnanimity.  Only  one 
thing  truly  need  the  Christian  envy,  the  large,  rich, 
generous  soul  which  "  envieth  not." 

And  then,  after  having  learned  all  that,  you  have  to 
learn  this  further  thing.  Humility—to  put  a  seal  upon 
your  lips  and  forget  what  you  have  done.  After  you 
have  been  kind,  after  Love  has  stolen  forth  into  the 
world  and  done  its  beautiful  work,  go  back  into  the 
shade  again  and  say  nothing  about  it.  Love  hides  even 
from  itself .  Love  waives  even  self-satisfaction.  "Love 
vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed  up." 

The  fifth  ingredient  is  a  somewhat  strange  one  to  find  in 
this  summum  bonum :  Courtesy.  This  is  Love  in  society, 
Love  in  relation  to  etiquette.  "Love  doth  not  behave 
itself  unseemly."  Pohteness  has  been  defined  as  love  in 
trifles.  Courtesy  is  said  to  be  love  in  little  things.  And 
the  one  secret  of  politeness  is  to  love.  Love  cannot  be- 
have itself  unseemly.  You  can  put  the  most  untutored 
persons  into  the  highest  society,  and  if  they  have  a 


4-6  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

reservoir  of  Love  in  their  heart,  they  will  not  behave 
themselves  unseemly.  They  simply  cannot  do  it.  Car- 
lyle  said  of  Robert  Burns  that  there  was  no  truer  gentle- 
man in  Europe  than  the  ploughman-poet.  It  was  be- 
cause he  loved  everything— the  mouse,  and  the  daisy, 
and  all  the  things,  great  and  small,  that  God  had  made. 
So  with  this  simple  passport  he  could  mingle  with  any 
society,  and  enter  courts  and  palaces  from  his  little  cot- 
tage on  the  banks  of  the  Ayr.  You  know  the  meaning 
of  the  word  "gentleman."  It  means  a  g:entle  man— a 
man  who  does  things  gently  with  love.  And  that  is  the 
whole  art  and  mystery  of  it.  The  gentle  man  cannot  in 
the  nature  of  things  do  an  ungentle,  an  ungentlemanly 
thing.  The  ungentle  soul,  the  inconsiderate,  unsympa- 
thetic nature  cannot  do  anything  else.  "  Love  doth  not 
behave  itself  unseemly." 

TJ7iselfisliness.  "Love  seeketh  not  her  own."  Ob- 
serve: Seeketh  not  even  that  which  is  her  own.  In 
Britain  the  Englishman  is  devoted,  and  rightly,  to  his 
rights.  But  there  come  times  when  a  man  may  exercise 
even  the  higher  right  of  giving  up  his  rights.  Yet  Paul 
does  not  summon  us  to  give  up  our  rights.  Love  strikes 
much  deeper.  It  would  have  us  not  seek  them  at  all, 
ignore  them,  eliminate  the  personal  element  altogether 
from  our  calculations.  It  is  not  hard  to  give  up  our 
rights.  They  are  often  external.  The  difficult  thing 
is  to  give  up  ourselves.  The  more  difficult  thing  still 
is  not  to  seek  things  for  ourselves  at  all.  After  we  have 
sought  them,  bought  them,  won  them,  deserved  them, 
we  have  taken  the  cream  off  them  for  ourselves  already. 
Little  cross  then  perhaps  to  give  them  up.    But  not  to 


TJlc  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World,  47 

seek  them,  to  look  every  man  not  on  his  own  things,  but 
on  the  things  of  others— icZ  opus  est.  "Seekest  thou 
great  things  for  thyself  ?"  said  the  prophet;  '^  seek  them 
noty  Why  ?  Because  there  is  no  greatness  in  things. 
Things  cannot  be  great.  The  only  greatness  is  unselfish 
love.  Even  self-denial  in  itself  is  nothing,  is  almost  a 
mistake.  Only  a  great  purpose  or  a  mightier  love  can 
justify  the  waste.  It  is  more  diflScult,  I  have  said,  not 
to  seek  our  own  at  all  than,  having  sought  it,  to  give  it 
up.  I  must  take  that  back.  It  is  only  true  of  a  partly 
selfish  heart.  Nothing  is  a  hardship  to  Love,  and 
nothing  is  hard.  I  believe  that  Christ's  yoke  is  easy. 
Christ's  "yoke  "is  just  His  way  of  taking  life.  And  I 
believe  it  is  an  easier  way  than  any  other.  I  believe  it  is 
a  happier  way  than  any  other.  The  most  obvious  lesson 
in  Christ's  teaching  is  that  there  is  no  happiness  in  hav- 
ing and  getting  anything,  but  only  in  giving.  I  repeat, 
there  is  no  happiness  in  having  or  in  getting,  but  only  in 
giving.  And  half  the  world  is  on  the  wrong  scent  in  the 
pursuit  of  happiness.  They  think  it  consists  in  having 
and  getting,  and  in  being  served  by  others.  It  consists 
in  giving,  and  in  serving  others.  He  that  would  be 
great  among  you,  said  Christ,  let  him  serve.  He  that 
would  be  happy,  let  him  remember  that  there  is  but  one 
way— it  is  more  blessed,  it  is  more  happy,  to  give  than  to 
receive. 

The  next  ingredient  is  a  very  remarkable  one :  Good 
Temper.  ' '  Love  is  not  easily  provoked. "  Nothing  could 
be  more  striking  than  to  find  this  here.  We  are  inclined 
to  look  upon  bad  temper  as  a  very  harmless  weakness. 
We  speak  of  it  as  a  mere  infirmity  of  natm*e,  a  family 


48  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World, 

failing,  a  matter  of  temperament,  not  a  thing  to  take 
into  very  serious  account  in  estimating  a  man's  charac- 
ter. And  yet  here,  right  in  the  heart  of  this  analysis  of 
love,  it  finds  a  place ;  and  the  Bible  again  and  again  re- 
turns to  condemn  it  as  one  of  the  most  destructive  ele- 
ments in  human  nature. 

The  peculiarity  of  ill  temper  is  that  it  is  the  vice  of 
the  virtuous.  It  is  often  the  one  blot  on  an  otherwise 
noble  character.  You  know  men  who  are  all  but  per- 
fect, and  women  who  would  be  entirely  perfect,  but  for 
an  easily  ruffled,  quick-tempered,  or  "touchy"  dispo- 
sition. This  compatibility  of  ill  temper  with  high  moral 
character  is  one  of  the  strangest  and  saddest  problems  of 
ethics.  The  truth  is  there  are  two  great  classes  of  sins — 
sins  of  the  Body^  and  sins  of  the  Disposition,  The 
Prodigal  Son  may  be  taken  as  a  type  of  the  first,  the 
Elder  Brother  of  the  second.  Now  society  has  no  doubt 
whatever  as  to  which  of  these  is  the  worse.  Its  brand 
falls,  without  a  challenge,  upon  the  Prodigal.  But  are 
we  right  ?  We  have  no  balance  to  weigh  one  another's 
sins,  and  coarser  and  finer  are  but  human  words;  but 
faults  in  the  higher  nature  may  be  less  venial  than  those 
in  the  lower,  and  to  the  eye  of  Him  who  is  Love,  a  sin 
against  Love  may  seem  a  hundred  times  more  base.  No 
form  of  vice,  not  worldliness,  not  greed  of  gold,  not 
drunkenness  itself,  does  more  to  un-Christianize  society 
than  evil  temper.  For  embittering  life,  for  breaking  up 
communities,  for  destroying  the  most  sacred  relation- 
ships, for  devastating  homes,  for  withering  up  men  and 
women,  for  taking  the  bloom  off  childhood,  in  short,  for 
sheer  gratuitous  misery-producing  power,  this  influence 


The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World.  49 

stands  alone.  Look  at  the  Elder  Brother,  moral,  hard- 
working, patient,  dutiful— let  him  get  all  credit  for  his 
virtues — look  at  this  man,  this  baby,  sulking  outside  his 
own  father's  door.  "He  was  angry,"  we  read,  "and 
would  not  go  in."  Look  at  the  effect  upon  the  father, 
upon  the  servants,  upon  the  happiness  of  the  guests. 
Judge  of  the  effect  upon  the  Prodigal— and  how  many 
prodigals  are  kept  out  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  by  the 
unlovely  character  of  those  who  profess  to  be  inside? 
Analyze,  as  a  study  in  Temper,  the  thunder-cloud  itself 
as  it  gathers  upon  the  Elder  Brother's  brow.  What  is 
it  made  of?  Jealousy,  anger,  pride,  uncharity,  cruelty, 
self -righteousness,  toucliiness,  doggedness,  sullenness — 
these  are  the  ingredients  of  this  dark  and  loveless  soul. 
In  varying  proportions,  also,  these  are  the  ingredients  of 
all  ill  temper.  Judge  if  such  sins  of  the  disposition  are 
not  worse  to  live  in,  and  for  others  to  live  with,  than  sins 
of  the  body.  Did  Christ  indeed  not  answer  the  question 
Himself  when  He  said,  "I  say  unto  you,  that  the  pub- 
licans and  the  hai'lots  go  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
before  you"  ?  There  is  really  no  place  in  Heaven  for  a 
disposition  like  this.  A  man  with  such  a  mood  could 
only  make  Heaven  miserable  for  all  the  people  in  it. 
Except,  therefore,  such  a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot, 
he  simply  cannot,  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  For  it 
is  perfectly  certain— and  you  will  not  misunderstand 
me— that  to  enter  Heaven  a  man  must  take  it  with  him. 
You  will  see  then  why  Temper  is  significant.  It  is  not 
in  what  it  is  alone,  but  in  what  it  reveals.  This  is  why 
I  take  the  liberty  now  of  speaking  of  it  with  such  un- 
usual plainness.    It  is  a  test  for  love,  a  symptom,  a  reve- 


50  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

lation  of  an  unloving  nature  at  bottom.  It  is  the  inter- 
mittent fever  which  bespeaks  unintermittent  disease 
within;  the  occasional  bubble  escaping  to  the  surface 
which  betrays  some  rottenness  underneath ;  a  sample  of 
the  most  hidden  products  of  the  soul  dropped  involun- 
tarily when  off  one's  guard;  in  a  word,  the  lightning 
form  of  a  hundred  hideous  and  un-Christian  sins.  For  a 
want  of  patience,  a  want  of  kindness,  a  want  of  gen- 
erosity, a  want  of  courtesy,  a  want  of  unselfishness,  are 
all  instantaneously  symbolized  in  one  flash  of  Temper. 

Hence  it  is  not  enough  to  deal  with  the  Temper.  We 
must  go  to  the  source,  and  change  the  inmost  nature, 
and  the  angry  humors  will  die  away  of  themselves. 
Souls  are  made  sweet  not  by  taking  the  acid  fluids  out, 
but  by  putting  something  in— a  great  Love,  a  new  Spirit, 
the  Spirit  of  Christ.  Christ,  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  inter- 
penetrating ours,  sweetens,  purifies,  transforms  all.  This 
only  can  eradicate  what  is  wrong,  work  a  chemical 
change,  renovate  and  regenerate,  and  rehabilitate  the 
inner  man.  Will-power  does  not  change  men.  Time 
does  not  change  men.  Christ  does.  Therefore  "Let 
that  mind  be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus." 
Some  of  us  have  not  much  time  to  lose.  Remember, 
once  more,  that  this  is  a  matter  of  life  or  death.  I  can- 
not help  speaking  urgently,  for  myself,  for  yourselves. 
"Whoso  shall  ofiend  one  of  these  little  ones,  which 
believe  in  me,  it  were  better  for  him  that  a  millstone 
were  hanged  about  his  neck,  and  that  he  were  drowned 
in  the  depth  of  the  sea."  That  is  to  say,  it  is  the  delib- 
erate verdict  of  the  Lord  Jesus  that  it  is  better  not  to  live 
than  not  to  love.    It  is  better  not  to  live  than  not  to  love, 


TJic  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World.  5 1 

Guilelessness  and  Sincerity  may  be  dismissed  almost 
with  a  word.  Guilelessness  is  the  grace  for  suspicious 
people.  And  the  possession  of  it  is  the  great  secret 
of  personal  influence.  You  will  find,  if  you  think  for  a 
moment,  that  the  people  who  influence  you  are  people 
who  believe  in  you.  In  an  atmosphere  of  suspicion  men 
shrivel  up  \  but  in  that  atmosphere  they  expand,  and 
find  encouragement  and  educative  fellowship.  It  is  a 
wonderful  thing  that  here  and  there  in  this  hard,  un- 
charitable world  there  should  still  be  left  a  few  rare  souls 
who  think  no  evil.  This  is  the  great  unworldliness. 
Love  "thinketh  no  evil,"  imputes  no  motive,  sees  the 
bright  side,  puts  the  best  construction  on  every  action. 
What  a  delightful  state  of  mind  to  live  ia  !  What  a 
stimulus  and  benediction  even  to  meet  with  it  for  a  day  ! 
To  be  trusted  is  to  be  saved.  And  if  we  try  to  influence 
or  elevate  others,  we  shall  soon  see  that  success  is  in  pro- 
portion to  their  belief  of  our  belief  in  them.  For  the 
respect  of  another  is  the  first  restoration  of  the  self- 
respect  a  man  has  lost;  our  ideal  of  what  he  is  becomes 
to  him  the  hope  and  pattern  of  what  he  may  become. 

"  Love  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in  the 
truth."  I  have  called  this  Sincerity  from  the  words 
rendered  in  the  Authorized  Version  by  "  rejoiceth  in  the 
truth."  And,  certainly,  were  this  the  real  translation, 
nothing  could  be  more  just.  For  he  who  loves  will  love 
Truth  not  less  than  men.  He  will  rejoice  in  the  Truth — 
rejoice  not  in  what  he  has  been  taught  to  beUeve ;  not  in 
this  Church's  doctrine  or  in  that ;  not  in  this  ism  or  in 
that  ism;  but  "  in  the  Truth.'"  He  will  accept  only  what 
is  real ;  he  will  strive  to  get  at  facts ;  he  will  search  for 


52  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

Truth  with  a  humble  and  unbiassed  mind,  and  cherish 
whatever  he  finds  at  any  sacrifice.  But  the  more  literal 
translation  of  the  Eevised  Version  calls  for  just  such  a 
sacrifice  for  truth's  sake  here.  For  what  Paul  really- 
meant  is,  as  we  there  read,  "Rejoiceth  not  in  unright- 
eousness, but  rejoiceth  with  the  truth,"  a  quality  which 
probably  no  one  English  word— and  certainly  not  Sin- 
cerity—adequately defines.  It  includes,  perhaps  more 
strictly,  the  self-restraint  which  refuses  to  make  capital 
out  of  others'  faults ;  the  charity  which  delights  not  in 
exposing  the  weakness  of  others,  but  ' '  covereth  all 
things;"  the  sincerity  of  purpose  which  endeavors  to  see 
things  as  they  are,  and  rejoices  to  find  them  better  than 
suspicion  feared  or  calumny  denounced. 

So  much  for  the  analysis  of  Love.  Now  the  business 
of  our  lives  is  to  have  these  things  fitted  into  our  charac- 
ters. That  is  the  supreme  work  to  which  we  need  to 
address  ourselves  in  this  world,  to  learn  Love.  Is  life 
not  full  of  opportunities  for  learning  Love  ?  Every  man 
and  woman  every  day  has  a  thousand  of  them.  The 
world  is  not  a  playground;  it  is  a  schoolroom.  Life  is 
not  a  holiday,  but  an  education.  And  the  one  eternal 
lesson  for  us  all  is  hoiv  better  ive  can  love.  What  makes 
a  man  a  good  cricketer  ?  Practice.  What  makes  a  man 
a  good  artist,  a  good  sculptor,  a  good  musician  ?  Prac- 
tice. What  makes  a  man  a  good  linguist,  a  good  sten- 
ographer ?  Practice.  What  makes  a  man  a  good  man  ? 
Practice.  Nothing  else.  There  is  nothing  capricious 
about  religion.  We  do  not  get  the  soul  in  different  ways', 
under  different  laws,  from  those  in  which  we  get  the 
body  and  the  mind.    If  a  man  does  not  exercise  his  arm 


TJie  Greatest  Tiling  in  the  World.  5  3 

he  develops  no  biceps  muscle;  and  if  a  inan  does  not  ex- 
ercise his  soul,  he  acquires  no  muscle  in  his  soul,  no 
strength  of  character,  no  vigor  of  moral  fibre,  nor  beauty 
of  spiritual  pn^owth.  Love  is  not  a  thing  of  enthusiastic 
emotion.  It  is  a  rich,  strong,  manly,  vigorous  expression 
of  the  whole  round  Christian  character— the  ChristUke 
nature  in  its  fullest  development.  And  the  constituents 
of  this  great  character  are  only  to  be  built  up  by  ceaseless 
practice. 

What  was  Christ  doing  in  the  carpenter's  shop? 
Practising.  Though  perfect,  we  read  that  He  learned 
obedience,  and  grew  in  wisdom  and  in  favor  with  God. 
Do  not  quarrel  therefore  with  your  lot  in  life.  Do  not 
complain  of  its  never-ceasing  cares,  its  petty  environ- 
ment, the  vexations  you  have  to  stand,  the  small  and 
sordid  souls  you  have  to  live  and  work  with.  Above  all, 
do  not  resent  temptation ;  do  not  be  perplexed  because  it 
seems  to  thicken  round  you  more  and  more,  and  ceases 
neither  for  effort  nor  for  agon 3'  nor  prayer.  That  is  your 
practice.  That  is  the  practice  which  God  appoints  you ; 
and  it  is  having  its  work  in  making  you  patient,  and 
humble,  and  generous,  and  unselfish,  and  kind,  and 
courteous.  Do  not  giuidge  the  hand  that  is  moulding  the 
still  too  shapeless  image  within  you.  It  is  growing  more 
beautiful,  though  you  see  it  not,  and  every  touch  of 
temptation  may  add  to  its  perfection.  Therefore  keep  in 
the  midst  of  life.  Do  not  isolate  yourself.  Be  among 
men,  and  among  things,  and  among  troubles,  and  diffi- 
culties, and  obstacles.  You  remember  Goethe's  words: 
Es  hildet  ein  Talent  sich  in  der  Stille,  Dock  ein  Charac- 
ter in  dem  Strom  der  Welt.     "Talent  develops  itself  in 


54  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World, 

solitude;  Character  in  the  stream  of  life."  Talent  de- 
velops itself  in  solitude— the  talent  of  prayer,  of  faith,  of 
meditation,  of  seeing  the  unseen;  Character  grows  in  the 
stream  of  the  world's  life.  That  chiefly  is  where  men  are 
to  learn  love. 

How  ?  Now,  how  ?  To  make  it  easier,  I  have  named 
a  few  of  the  elements  of  love.  But  these  are  only  ele- 
ments. Love  itself  can  never  be  defined.  Light  is  a 
something  more  than  the  sum  of  its  ingredients — a  glow- 
ing, dazzling,  tremulous  ether.  And  love  is  something 
more  than  all  its  elements— a  palpitating,  quivering,  sen- 
sitive, living  thing.  By  synthesis  of  all  the  colors,  men 
can  make  whiteness,  they  cannot  make  light.  By  syn- 
thesis of  all  the  virtues,  men  can  make  virtue,  they 
cannot  make  love.  How  then  are  we  to  have  this  trans- 
cendent living  whole  conveyed  into  our  souls  ?  We  brace 
our  wills  to  secure  it.  We  try  to  copy  those  who  have 
it.  We  lay  down  rules  about  it.  We  watch.  We  pray. 
But  these  things  alone  will  not  bring  Love  into  our  nature. 
Love  is  an  effect.  And  only  as  we  fulfil  the  right  condi- 
tion can  we  have  the  effect  produced.  Shall  I  tell  you 
what  the  cause  is  ? 

If  you  turn  to  the  Eevised  Version  of  the  First  Epistle 
of  John  you  will  find  these  words:  *'  We  love  because  He 
first  loved  us."  "We  love,"  not  "  We  love  iJm."  That 
is  the  way  the  old  version  has  it,  and  it  is  quite  wrong. 
*'  We  Zoi;e— because  He  first  loved  us."  Look  at  that 
word  "  because."  It  is  the  cause  of  which  I  have  spoken. 
^^ Because  He  first  loved  us,"  the  effect  follows  that  we 
love,  we  love  Him,  we  love  all  men.  We  cannot  help  it. 
Because  He  loved  us,  we  love,  we  love  everybody.    Our 


TJie  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World.  5  5 

heart  is  slowly  changed.  Contemplate  the  love  of  Christ, 
and  you  will  love.  Stand  before  that  mirror,  reflect 
Christ's  character,  and  you  will  be  changed  into  the  same 
image  from  tenderness  to  tenderness.  There  is  no  other 
way.  You  cannot  love  to  order.  You  can  only  look  at 
the  lovely  object,  and  fall  in  love  with  it,  and  grow  into 
likeness  to  it.  And  so  look  at  this  Perfect  Character,  this 
Perfect  Life.  Look  at  the  great  Sacrifice  as  He  laid 
down  Himself,  all  through  life,  and  upon  the  Cross  of 
Calvary;  and  you  must  love  Him.  And  loving  Him, 
you  must  become  like  Him.  Love  begets  love.  It  is  a 
process  of  induction.  Put  a  piece  of  iron  in  the  presence 
of  an  electrified  body,  and  that  piece  of  iron  for  a  time 
becomes  electrified.  It  is  changed  into  a  temporary 
magnet  in  the  mere  presence  of  a  permanent  magnet, 
and  as  long  as  you  leave  the  two  side  by  side,  they  are 
both  magnets  alike.  Remain  side  by  side  with  Him  who 
loved  us,  and  gave  Himself  for  us,  and  you  too  will  be- 
come a  permanent  magnet,  a  permanently  attractive 
force ;  and  like  Him  you  will  draw  all  men  unto  you,  like 
Him  you  will  be  drawn  unto  all  men.  That  is  the  inevi- 
table effect  of  Love.  Any  man  who  fulfils  that  cause 
must  have  that  effect  produced  in  him.  Try  to  gi/e  up 
the  idea  that  religion  comes  to  us  by  chance,  or  by  mys- 
tery, or  by  caprice.  It  comes  to  us  by  natural  law,  or 
by  supernatural  law,  for  all  law  is  Divine.  Edward 
Irving  went  to  see  a  dying  boy  once,  and  when  he  en- 
tered the  room  he  just  put  his  hand  on  the  sufferer's 
head,  and  said,  "My  boy,  God  loves  you,"  and  went 
away.  And  the  boy  started  from  his  bed,  and  called  out 
to  the  people  in  the  house,  "  God  loves  me  !  God  loves 


56  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

me  !"  It  changed  that  boy.  The  sense  that  God  loved 
him  overpowered  him,  melted  him  down,  and  began  the 
creating  of  a  new  heart  in  him.  And  that  is  how  the 
love  of  God  melts  down  the  unlovely  heart  in  man,  and 
begets  in  him  the  new  creature,  who  is  patient  and 
humble  and  gentle  and  unselfish.  And  there  is  no  other 
way  to  get  it.  There  is  no  mystery  about  it.  We  love 
others,  we  love  everybody,  we  love  our  enemies,  because 
He  first  loved  us. 


THE  DEFENCE. 

Now  I  have  a  closing  sentence  or  two  to  add  about 
Paul's  reason  for  singling  out  love  as  the  supreme  posses- 
sion. It  is  a  very  remarkable  reason.  In  a  single  word 
it  is  this:  it  lasts.  "  Love,"  urges  Paul,  "never  faileth." 
Then  he  begins  again  one  of  his  marvellous  lists  of  the 
great  things  of  the  day,  and  exposes  them  one  by  one. 
He  runs  over  the  things  that  men  thought  were  going  to 
last,  and  shows  that  they  are  all  fleeting,  temporary, 
passing  away. 

"Whether  there  be  prophecies,  they  shall  fail."  It 
was  the  mother's  ambition  for  her  boy  in  those  days  that 
he  should  become  a  prophet.  For  hundreds  of  years  God 
had  never  spoken  by  means  of  any  prophet,  and  at  that 
time  the  prophet  was  greater  than  tlie  King.  Men  waited 
wistfully  for  another  messenger  to  come,  and  hung  upon 
his  lips  when  he  appeared  as  upon  the  very  voice  of  God. 
Paul  says,  "Whether  there  be  prophecies,  they  shall 
fail."  This  Book  is  full  of  prophecies.  One  by  one  they 
have  "failed";  that  is,  having  been  fulfilled  their  work 


The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World.  5/ 

is  finished ;  they  have  nothing  more  to  do  now  in  the 
world  except  to  feed  a  devout  man's  faith. 

Then  Paul  talks  about  tongues.  That  was  another 
thing  that  was  greatly  coveted.  "Whether  there  be 
tongues,  they  shall  cease."  As  we  all  know,  many, 
many  centuries  have  passed  since  tongues  have  been 
known  in  this  world.  They  have  ceased.  Take  it  in  any 
sense  you  like.  Take  it,  for  illustration  merely,  as  lan- 
guages in  general — a  sense  which  was  not  in  Paul's  mind 
at  all,  and  which  though  it  cannot  give  us  the  specific 
lesson  will  point  the  general  truth.  Consider  the  words 
in  which  these  chaptei-s  were  written— Greek.  It  has 
gone.  Take  the  Latin— the  other  great  tongue  of  those 
days.  It  ceased  long  ago.  Look  at  the  Indian  language. 
It  is  ceasing.  The  language  of  Wales,  of  Ireland,  of  the 
Scottish  Highlands  is  dying  before  our  eyes.  The  most 
popular  book  in  the  English  tongue  at  the  present  time, 
except  the  Bible,  is  one  of  Dickens's  works,  his  Pickwick 
Papers.  It  is  largely  written  in  the  language  of  London 
street-life;  and  experts  assure  us  that  in  fifty  years  it 
will  be  unintelligible  to  the  average  Eiiglish  reader. 

Then  Paul  goes  farther,  and  with  even  greater  boldness 
adds,  "  Whether  there  be  knowledge,  it  shall  vanish 
away.'"  The  wisdom  of  the  ancients,  where  is  it  ?  It  is 
wholly  gone.  A  schoolboy  to-day  knows  more  than  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  knew.  His  knowledge  has  vanished  away. 
You  put  yesterday's  newspaper  in  the  fire.  Its  knowledge 
has  vanished  away.  You  buy  the  old  editions  of  the 
great  encyclopaedias  for  a  few  pence.  Their  knowledge 
has  vanished  away.  Look  how  the  coach  has  been  super- 
seded by  the  use  of  steam.    Look  how  electricity  has 


58  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

superseded  that,  and  swept  a  hundred  almost  new  inven- 
tions into  oblivion.  One  of  the  greatest  living  authorities, 
Sir  William  Thompson,  said  the  other  day,  "  The  steam 
engine  is  passing  away."  "Whether  there  be  knowledge, 
it  shall  vanish  away."  At  every  workshop  you  will  see, 
in  the  back  yard,  a  heap  of  old  iron,  a  few  wheels,  a  few 
levers,  a  few  cranks,  broken  and  eaten  with  rust. 
Twenty  years  ago  that  was  the  pride  of  the  city.  Men 
flocked  in  from  the  country  to  see  the  great  invention ; 
now  it  is  superseded,  its  day  is  done.  And  all  the  boasted 
science  and  philosophy  of  this  day  will  soon  be  old.  But 
yesterday,  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  the  greatest 
figure  in  the  faculty  was  Sir  James  Simpson,  the  discov- 
erer of  chloroform.  The  other  day  his  successor  and 
nephew.  Professor  Simpson,  was  asked  by  the  librarian 
of  the  University  to  go  to  the  library  and  pick  out  the 
books  on  his  subject  that  were  no  longer  needed.  And 
his  reply  to  the  librarian  was  this:  "Take  every  text- 
book that  is  more  than  ten  years  old,  and  put  it  down  in 
the  cellar."  Sir  James  Simpson  was  a  great  authority 
only  a  few  years  ago:  men  came  from  all  parts  of  the 
earth  to  consult  him ;  and  almost  the  whole  teaching  of 
that  time  is  consigned  by  the  science  of  to-day  to  oblivion. 
And  in  every  branch  of  science  it  is  the  same.  "  Now  we 
know  in  part.    We  see  through  a  glass  darkly." 

Can  you  tell  me  anything  that  is  going  to  last  ?  Many 
things  Paul  did  not  condescend  to  name.  He  did  not 
mention  money,  fortune,  fame;  but  he  picked  out  the 
great  things  of  his  time,  the  things  the  best  men  thought 
had  something  in  them,  and  brushed  them  peremptorily 
aside.    Paul  had  no  charge  against  these  things  in  them- 


TJie  Greatest  Tiling  in  the  World.  59 

selves.  All  he  said  about  them  was  that  they  would  not 
last.  They  were  great  things,  but  not  supreme  things. 
There  were  things  beyond  them.  What  we  are  stretches 
past  what  we  do,  beyond  what  we  possess.  Many  things 
that  men  denounce  as  sins  are  not  sins ;  but  they  are 
temporary.  And  that  is  a  favorite  argument  of  the  New 
Testament.  John  says  of  the  world,  not  that  it  is  wrong, 
but  simply  that  it  ''passeth  away."  There  is  a  gi-eat 
deal  in  the  world  that  is  dehghtful  and  beautiful ;  there 
is  a  great  deal  in  it  that  is  great  and  engrossing;  but  it 
will  not  last.  All  that  is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the  eye, 
the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  pride  of  life,  are  but  for  a 
little  while.  Love  not  the  world  therefore.  Nothing 
that  it  contains  is  worth  the  life  and  consecration  of  an 
immortal  soul.  The  immortal  soul  must  give  itself  to 
something  that  is  immortal.  And  the  only  immortal 
things  are  these:  "  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  but  the 
greatest  of  these  is  love." 

Some  think  the  time  may  come  when  two  of  these 
three  things  will  also  pass  away— faith  into  sight,  hope 
into  fruition.  Paul  does  not  say  so.  We  know  but  little 
now  about  the  conditions  of  the  life  that  is  to  come.  But 
what  is  certain  is  that  Love  must  last.  God,  the  Eternal 
God,  is  Love.  Covet  therefore  that  everlasting  gift,  that 
one  thing  which  it  is  certain  is  going  to  stand,  that  one 
coinage  which  will  be  current  in  the  Universe  when  all 
the  other  coinages  of  all  the  nations  of  the  world  ?hall  be 
useless  and  unhonored.  You  will  give  yourselves  to 
many  things,  give  yourselves  first  to  Love.  Hold  things 
in  their  proportion.  Hold  things  in  their  proportion. 
Let  at  least  the  first  great  object  of  our  lives  be  to  achieve 


6o  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World, 

the  character  defended  in  these  words,  the  character— 
and  it  is  the  character  of  Christ— which  is  built  round 
Love. 

I  have  said  this  thing  is  eternal.  Did  you  ever  notice 
how  continually  John  associates  love  and  faith  with 
eternal  life  ?  I  was  not  told  when  I  was  a  boy  that  "  God 
so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  have  everlasting 
life."  What  I  was  told,  I  remember,  was,  that  God  so 
loved  the  world  that,  if  I  trusted  in  Him,  I  was  to  have  a 
thing  called  peace,  or  I  was  to  have  rest,  or  I  was  to  have 
joy,  or  I  was  to  have  safety.  But  I  had  to  find  out  for 
myself  that  whosoever  trusteth  in  Him -that  is,  whoso- 
ever loveth  Him,  for  trust  is  only  the  avenue  to  Love- 
hath  everlasting  life.  The  Gospel  offers  a  man  life. 
Never  offer  men  a  thimbleful  of  Gospel.  Do  not  offer 
them  merely  joy,  or  merely  peace,  or  merely  rest,  or 
merely  safety;  tell  them  how  Christ  came  to  give  men  a 
more  abundant  life  than  they  have,  a  life  abundant  in 
love,  and  therefore  abundant  in  salvation  for  themselves, 
and  large  in  enterprise  for  the  alleviation  and  redemption 
of  the  world.  Then  only  can  the  Gospel  take  hold  of  the 
whole  of  a  man,  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  and  give  to  each 
part  of  his  nature  its  exercise  and  reward.  Many  of  the 
current  Gospels  are  addressed  only  to  a  part  of  man's 
nature.  They  offer  peace,  not  life ;  faith,  not  Love ;  jus- 
tification, not  regeneration.  And  men  shp  back  again 
from  such  religion  because  it  has  never  really  held  them. 
Their  nature  was  not  all  in  it.  It  offered  no  deeper  and 
gladder  life-current  than  the  life  that  was  Hved  before. 


The  Greatest  TJdng  iji  the  World.  6i 

Surely  it  stands  to  reason  that  only  a  fuller  love  can 
compete  with  the  love  of  the  world. 

To  love  abundantly  is  to  live  abundantly,  and  to  love 
for  ever  is  to  live  for  ever.  Hence,  ettrnal  life  is  inex- 
tricably bound  up  with  love.  We  want  to  live  for  ever 
for  the  same  reason  that  we  want  to  live  to-morrow. 
Why  do  you  want  to  live  to-morrow  ?  It  is  because 
there  is  some  one  who  loves  you,  and  whom  you  want  to 
see  to-morrow,  and  be  with,  and  love  back.  There  is  no 
other  reason  why  we  should  live  on  than  that  we  love 
and  are  beloved.  It  is  when  a  man  has  no  one  to  love 
him  that  he  commits  suicide.  So  long  as  he  has  friends, 
those  who  love  him  and  whom  he  loves,  he  will  live;  be- 
cause to  live  is  to  love.  Be  it  but  the  love  of  a  dog,  it  will 
keep  him  in  life;  but  let  that  go  and  he  has  no  contact 
with  life,  no  reason  to  live.  He  dies  by  his  own  hand. 
Eternal  life  also  is  to  know  God,  and  God  is  love.  This 
is  Christ's  own  definition.  Ponder  it.  "This  is  life 
eternal,  that  they  might  know  Thee  the  only  true  God, 
and  Jesus  Christ  whom  Thou  hast  sent."  Love  must  be 
eternal.  It  is  what  God  is.  On  the  last  analysis,  then, 
love  is  life.  Love  never  faileth,  and  life  never  faileth,  so 
long  as  there  is  love.  That  is  the  philosophy  of  what 
Paul  is  showing  us;  the  reason  why  in  the  nature  of 
things  Love  should  be  the  supreme  thing — because  it  is 
going  to  last;  because  in  the  nature  of  things  it  is  an 
Eternal  Life.  It  is  a  thing  that  we  are  living  now,  not 
that  we  get  when  we  die;  that  we  shall  have  a  poor 
chance  of  getting  when  we  die  unless  we  are  living  now. 
No  worse  fate  can  befall  a  man  in  this  world  than  to  live 
and  grow  old  alone,  unloving,  and  unloved.    To  be  lost 


62  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World, 

is  to  live  in  an  unregenerate  condition,  loveless  and  un- 
loved; and  to  be  saved  is  to  love;  and  he  tliat  dwelleth 
in  love  dwelleth  already  in  God.    For  God  is  love. 

Now  I  have  all  but  finished.  How  many  of  you  will 
join  me  in  reading  this  chapter  once  a  week  for  the  next 
three  months  ?  A  man  did  that  once  and  it  changed  his 
whole  life.  Will  you  do  it  ?  It  is  for  the  greatest  thing 
in  the  world.  You  might  begin  by  reading  it  every  day, 
especially  the  verses  which  describe  the  perfect  character. 
"Love  suffereth  long  and  is  kind;  love  envieth  not;  love 
vaunteth  not  itself."  Get  these  ingredients  into  your 
life.  Then  everything  that  you  do  is  eternal.  It  is 
worth  doing.  It  is  worth  giving  time  to.  No  man  can 
become  a  saint  in  his  sleep ;  and  to  fulfil  the  condition  re- 
quired demands  a  certain  amount  of  prayer  and  medita- 
tion and  time,  just  as  improvement  in  any  direction, 
bodily  or  mental,  requires  preparation  and  care.  Address 
yourselves  to  that  one  thing;  at  any  cost  have  this  tran- 
scendent character  exchanged  for  yours.  You  will  find 
as  you  look  back  upon  your  life  that  the  moments  that 
stand  out,  the  moments  when  you  have  really  lived,  are 
the  moments  when  you  have  done  things  in  a  spirit  of 
love.  As  memory  scans  the  past,  above  and  beyond  all 
the  transitory  pleasures  of  Hfe,  there  leap  forward  those 
supreme  hours  when  you  have  been  enabled  to  do  unno- 
ticed kindnesses  to  those  round  about  you,  things  too 
trifling  to  speak  about,  but  which  you  feel  have  entered 
into  your  eternal  life.  I  have  seen  almost  all  the  beauti- 
ful things  God  has  made ;  I  have  enjoyed  almost  every 
pleasure  that  He  has  planned  for  man ;  and  yet  as  I  look 
back  I  see  standing  out  above  all  the  life  that  has  gone 


The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World  6"^ 

four  or  five  short  experiences  when  the  love  of  God 
reflected  itself  in  some  poor  imitation,  some  small  act  of 
love  of  mine,  and  these  seem  to  be  the  things  which  alone 
of  all  one's  life  abide.  Everything  else  in  all  our  lives  is 
transitory.  Every  other  good  is  visionary.  But  the  acts 
of  love  which  no  man  knows  about,  or  can  ever  know 
about— they  never  fail. 

In  the  Book  of  Matthew,  where  the  Judgment  Day  is 
depicted  for  us  in  the  imagery  of  One  seated  upon  a 
throne  and  dividing  the  sheep  from  the  goats,  the  test  of 
a  man  then  is  not,  "  How  have  I  believed  ?"  but  "How 
have  I  loved  ?"  The  test  of  religion,  the  final  test  of  re- 
ligion, is  not  religiousness,  but  Love.  I  say  the  final  test 
of  religion  at  that  great  Day  is  not  religiousness,  but 
Love;  not  what  I  have  done,  not  what  I  have  believed, 
not  what  I  have  achieved,  but  how  I  have  discharged  the 
common  charities  of  life.  Sins  of  commission  in  that 
awful  indictment  are  not  even  referred  to.  By  what  we 
have  not  done,  by  sins  of  omission,  we  are  judged.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise.  For  the  withholding  of  love  is 
the  negation  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  the  proof  that  we 
never  knew  Him,  that  for  us  He  lived  in  vain.  It  means 
that  he  suggested  nothing  in  all  our  thoughts,  that  He 
inspired  nothing  in  all  our  lives,  that  we  were  not  once 
near  enough  to  Him  to  be  seized  with  the  spell  of  His 
compassion  for  the  world.    It  means  that — 

"  I  lived  for  myself,  I  thought  for  myself, 
For  myself,  aud  uone  beside — 
Just  as  if  Jesus  had  never  lived, 
As  if  He  had  never  died," 


64  The  Greatesc  Thing  in  the  World. 

It  is  the  Son  of  Man  before  whom  the  nations  of  the 
world  shall  be  gathered.  It  is  in  the  presence  of  Humanity 
that  we  shall  be  charged.  And  the  spectacle  itself,  the 
mere  sight  of  it,  will  silently  judge  each  one.  Those  will 
be  there  whom  we  have  met  and  helped;  or  there,  the 
unpitied  multitude  whom  we  neglected  or  despised.  No 
other  Witness  need  be  summoned.  No  other  charge  than 
lovelessness  shall  be  preferred.  Be  not  deceived.  The 
words  which  aU  of  us  shall  one  Day  hear  sound  not  of 
theology  but  of  life,  not  of  churches  and  saints  but  of  the 
hungry  and  the  poor,  not  of  creeds  and  doctrines  but  of 
shelter  and  clothing,  not  of  Bibles  and  prayer-books  but 
of  cups  of  cold  water  in  the  name  of  Christ.  Thank  God 
the  Christianity  of  to-day  is  coming  nearer  the  world's 
need.  Live  to  help  that  on.  Thank  God  men  know 
better,  by  a  hair's  breadth,  what  religion  is,  what  God  is, 
who  Christ  is,  where  Christ  is.  Who  is  Christ  ?  He  who 
fed  the  hungry,  clothed  the  naked,  visited  the  sick. 
And  where  is  Christ  ?  Where  ?— Whoso  shall  receive  a 
little  child  in  My  name  receiveth  Me.  And  who  are 
Christ's  ?    Every  one  that  loveth  is  born  of  God. 


THE  END. 


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